THE PROPER CONDITIONS:--LIGHT, TEMPERATURE AND MOISTURE
After so much advice as to the possibility of making conditions right
for the growing of plants in the house, the inexperienced reader will
naturally want to know what these conditions are.
LIGHT
In the first place, almost all plants, whether they flower or not, must
have an abundance of light, and many require sunshine, especially during
the dull days of winter. Plants without sufficient light never make a
normal, healthy growth; the stems are long, lanky and weak, the foliage
has a semi-transparent, washed-out look, and the whole plant falls an
easy victim to disease or insect enemies. Even plants grown in the full
light of a window, as everyone with any experience in managing them
knows from observation, will draw toward the glass and become one-sided
with the leaves all facing one way. Therefore even with the best of
conditions, it is necessary to turn them half about every few days,
preferably every time they are watered, in order that they may maintain
an even, shapely growth.
As a rule the flowering plants, such as geraniums and heliotropes,
require more light and sunshine than those grown for foliage, such as
palms, ferns and the decorative leaved begonias. It is almost
impossible, during the winter months, to give any of them too much
sunlight and where there is any danger of this, as sometimes happens in
early fall or late spring, a curtain of the thinnest material will give
them ample protection, the necessity being not to exclude the light, but
simply to break the direct action of the sun's rays through glass.
A great variety of plants may be grown in the ordinary window garden,
for which the sunniest and broadest window available should be selected.
There are two methods of handling the plants: they may be kept as
individual specimens in pots and "dishes" or "pans" (which are nothing
more or less than shallow flower pots), or they may be grown together in
a plant box, made for the purpose and usually more or less decorative in
itself, that will harmonize with and set off the beauty of the plants.
The latter method, that of growing in boxes, offers two distinct
advantages, especially where there is likely to be encountered too high
a temperature and consequent dryness in the air. The plants are more
easily cared for than they are in pots, which rapidly dry out and need
frequent changing; and effects in grouping and harmonious decoration may
be had which are not readily secured with plants in pots. On the other
hand, it is not possible to give such careful attention to individual
plants which may require it as when they are grown in pots; nor can
there be so much re-arrangement and change when these are required--and
what good housekeeper is not a natural born scene shifter, every once in
so often rolling the piano around to the other side of the room, and
moving the bookcase or changing the big Boston fern over to the other
window, so it can be seen from the dining-room?
If the plants are to be kept in pots--and on the whole this will
generally be the more satisfactory method--several shelves of light,
smooth wood of a convenient width (six to twelve inches) should be
firmly placed, by means of the common iron brackets, in each window to
be used. It will help, both in keeping the pots in place and in
preventing muddy water from dripping down to the floor or table below,
if a thin, narrow strip of wood is nailed to each edge of these shelves,
extending an inch or two above them. A couple of coats of outside paint
will also add to the looks and to the life of these shelves and further
tend to prevent any annoying drip from draining pots. Such a shelf will
be still further improved by being covered an inch or two deep with
coarse gravel or fine pebbles.
[Illustration: If possible it is well to have the house plants in a
place where the moisture and temperature can be regulated for them
alone]
[Illustration: In almost any house it is possible to arrange a wide sill
with a metal or tile bottom where house plants may be properly cared
for]
This is much better than the use of pot saucers, especially for small
pots. Where a bay-window is used, if cut off from the room by glass
doors, or even by curtains, it will aid greatly in keeping a moist
atmosphere about the plants and preventing dust from settling on the
leaves when sweeping or dusting is being done.
A window-box can readily be made of planed inch pine boards, tightly
fitted and tightly joined. It should be six to ten inches wide and six
to eight inches deep. If a plain box is used, it will be necessary to
bore inch holes every six inches or so through the bottom to provide for
carrying off of any excess of water--although, with the method of
filling the box described in a later chapter, those holes would hardly
ever be called into service. Plants in the house in the winter, however,
are as likely to suffer from too much water as from too little, and
therefore, to prevent the disagreeable possibility of having dirty
drainage water running down onto several feet of floor, it will be
almost as easy, and far better, to have the box constructed with a
bottom made of two pieces, sloping slightly to the center where one hole
is made in which a cork can be kept. A false bottom of tin or zinc, with
the requisite number of holes cut out, and supported by three or four
inch strips of wood running lengthways of the box, supplies the
drainage. These strips must, of course, be cut in the middle to allow
all the water to drain out. The false bottom will take care of any
ordinary surplus of water, which can be drained off into a watering can
or pitcher by taking out the cork. The details of construction of such a
box are shown in figure 1. It will be best to have the box so placed
upon its supporting brackets that it can be changed occasionally end for
end, thus keeping the plants growing evenly, and not permitting the
blooms continually to turn their backs to the inside of the room.
[Illustration: Fig. 1--Box for plants. AC--false zinc bottom; AB,
CB--slanting bottom to drain water out at hole B.]
With the above simple provisions one may take advantage of all the light
to be had in an ordinary window. Occasionally a better place may be
found ready to hand, such as the bay-window illustrated facing page 8 or
such as that described in the preceding chapter, or those mentioned in
the first chapter of Part II (page 146). The effort demanded will always
be repaid many times by greater ease and greater success in the
management of plants, and by the wider scope permitted.
TEMPERATURE
Next in importance to light, is the matter of temperature. The ordinary
house plants, to be kept in health, require a temperature of sixty-five
to seventy-five degrees during the day and fifty to fifty-five degrees
at night. Frequently it will not be possible to keep the room from going
lower at night, but it should be kept as near that as possible;
forty-five degrees occasionally will not do injury, and even several
degrees lower will not prove fatal, but if frequently reached the plants
will be checked and seem to stand still. Plants in the dormant, or
semi-dormant condition are not so easily injured by low temperature as
those in full growth; also plants which are quite dry will stand much
more cold than those in moist soil.
The proper condition of temperature is the most difficult thing to
regulate and maintain in growing plants in the house. There is, however,
at least one room in almost every house where the night temperature does
not often go below forty-five or fifty degrees, and if necessary all
plants may be collected into one room during very cold weather. Another
precaution which will often save them is to move them away from the
windows; put sheets of newspaper inside the panes, not, however,
touching the glass, as a "dead air space" must be left between. Where
there is danger of freezing, a kerosene lamp or stove left burning in
the room overnight will save them. Never, when the temperature outside
is below freezing, should plants be left where leaves or blossoms may
touch the glass.
As with the problem of light, so with that of temperature--the specially
designed place for plants, no matter how small or simple a little nook
it may be, offers greater facility for furnishing the proper conditions.
But it is, of course, not imperative, and as I have said, there is
probably not one home in twenty where a number of sorts of plants cannot
be safely carried through the winter.
MOISTURE
It would seem, at first thought, that the proper condition of moisture
could be furnished as easily in the house as anywhere. And so it can be
as far as applying water to the soil is concerned; but the air in most
dwellings in winter is terribly deficient in moisture. The fact that a
room is so dry that plants cannot live in it should sound a warning to
us who practically live there for days at a time, but it does not, and
we continue to contract all sorts of nose and throat troubles, to say
nothing of more serious diseases. No room too dry for plants to live in
is fit for people to live in. Hot-air and steam heating systems
especially, produce an over-dry condition of the atmosphere. This can
be overcome to a great or complete extent by thorough ventilation and by
keeping water constantly where it can evaporate; over radiators, etc.
This should be done for the sake of your own health, if not for that of
the plant.
Further information as to watering and ventilation will be found in
Chapter VII (page 45), but before we get anxious about just how to take
care of plants we must know how to get them, and before getting them we
must know what to give them to grow in--the plant's foundation. So for a
little we must be content with those prosaic but altogether essential
matters of soil, manures and fertilizers, which in the next chapter I
shall try to make clear in as brief manner as possible.