The treatment of house plants is very little understood, although the
practice of keeping shrubs and flowers during the winter is almost
universal. It is important that the physiological principles on which
success depends should be familiarly understood; and then cultivators
can apply them with success in all the varying circumstances in which
they may be called to act.
Two objects are proposed in taking plants into the house—either simple
protection, or the development of their foliage and flowers, during
the winter. The same treatment will not do for both objects. Indeed,
the greatest number of persons of our acquaintance, treat their winter
plants, from which they desire flowers, as if they only wished to
preserve them till spring; and the consequence is, that they have very
little enjoyment in their favorites.