Foliage Plants Everyone May Grow 
AN EXPOSITION OF A SUBJECT ABOUT WHICH TOO LITTLE IS GENERALLY KNOWN—THE 
NEEDS, APPEARANCE AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MOST SATISFACTORY KINDS 
by F. F. Rockwell 
Photographs by Chas. Jones and Others 
T HE peerless beauty of palms as house plants is never ques¬ 
tioned ; and if the details of their culture were more 
generally known they would undoubtedly be more generally used. 
The reason why they are not to be found wherever plants are 
grown in the house is not so much that they are more difficult 
to handle as that they are different in their requirements. 
In the first place, while most house plants should be repotted as 
often as they begin to form a mass of roots about the outside of 
the earth ball, palms do best when restricted as to root room. 
Repotting once a year when they are small, and even less fre¬ 
quently when they are in large pots or small tubs, will be often 
enough. They grow very slowly, and it is not only useless but 
dangerous to attempt to force them along at a more rapid pace. 
The best time for repotting is late spring — May or June. Use 
a pot only one size larger than that in which the palm has been 
growing. Remove carefully, do not disturb the roots, and put 
into the new pot carefully, ramming the new earth in firmly about 
the old ball with a thin piece of wood. 
The soil for palms need not contain as much humus (leaf mold 
or peat) as that for most other house plants. Good, rich garden 
loam, with sharp sand added and bone meal worked through it, 
will be right. 
Be sure the drainage is perfect. Crock the pots carefully. If 
any of the crocking from the old pots comes out with the ball of 
earth, remove it as carefully as possible and fill in the space with 
soil. After potting, keep shaded for several days. 
While palms require plenty of water, no plants are more fatally 
injured by overwatering. Above all care must be taken never to 
let water accumu¬ 
late in saucers or 
jardinieres in 
which the pots 
are standing. 
Water will soak 
up through a pot 
as well as down 
through it, and 
water - saturated 
soil will quickly 
become sour. 
When you do 
water, do so thor¬ 
oughly, then see 
that the pots are 
kept where they 
can drain out, 
and do not water 
again until they 
show a tendency 
to get too dry. 
Much water will 
cause the leaves 
to turn brown. In 
this case, change the treatment at once. The amount of water 
required is much greater in summer than in the winter, when the 
plants are practically at rest. 
Direct sunlight is not desirable for palms, 
but they should have plenty of light. Do not 
stick them away in a dark corner or an inner 
room and expect them to do well. They will 
stand such a situation several days without in¬ 
jury, but should be brought back to the light 
as soon as possible. They do well in north 
windows, providing the temperature of the 
room is high enough. Remember, however, 
that pots kept in a shady place will dry out 
much less quickly then those in the light or 
sunlight. If they are to be kept permanently 
where the sun does not strike it is a good thing 
to add charcoal to the soil, as this aids greatly 
in keeping it from becoming sour. 
Give plenty of air — the more the better, so 
long as a proper temperature is kept up, as that 
counteracts the effect of the more or less poison¬ 
ous atmosphere of living-rooms kept closed dur¬ 
ing winter. Beware of drafts blowing across 
the palms, but provide plenty of fresh air. 
In the spring, as soon as it warms up out¬ 
doors — say after the apple blooms fall — place 
the palms outside in a sheltered position, where 
they can be given plenty of water. At this time, 
if they are not repotted, bone meal should be 
worked into the surface of the soil and a liquid 
manure of bone meal given once a month or so 
during the growing season. 
If the piazza conservatory is floored with concrete, the plants may be freely watered 
without injury to the floor 
Dracaena indivisa is a good house plant com¬ 
bining attractive foliage with great hardiness 
(108) 
