XVIII

XVIIIGARDEN DON'TSDon't let your springtime enthusiasm lead you to undertake more than youfeel quite sureof being able to carry out. Keep in mind the fact that there will be work to do all through the season in order to make your garden a success, and think over what the result will be if you fail to give your plants all the care they need after you have got them well under way. Don't give them a chance to say that you haven't given them fair treatment because your enthusiasm waned with the season.***Don't attempt to grow all the plants that the florists describe so attractively in their catalogues. Concentrate your efforts on the best ones—that is, the ones best adapted to amateur gardening. Give these the best possible care. This advice applies with equal pertinence to all phases of gardening, outdoors or indoors.***Don't pattern your garden after your neighbor's. Think out original features for the garden you propose to make, if you choose to do so, but don't aim to be so extremely original that the originality of it will attract more attention than the flowers in it. These should receive first consideration always.***Don't waste your time on "carpet-bedding" unless you make use of plants with colored foliage in carrying out your designs. Flowering plants are practically worthless for this purpose, as they have such a tendency to reach out beyond the limits assigned them that all distinctness in the outline of your pattern will soon be lost sight of. About all that seems worth while for the amateur gardener to do in the arrangement of her plant is to so use them that strong masses of color can be produced. If care is taken to choose those of harmonious colors, these can be so arranged as to heighten the general effect by contrast.***Don't set out to have a garden or to grow house plants unless you have the true gardening instinct. By that I mean a love for plants and flowers that would make youattemptto grow them under circumstanceswhich your own judgment tells you make success impossible. The woman who tries to grow a geranium in a tin can in a window four or five stories up in the air because of her love for flowers would be almost sure to make a splendid success of a garden on the ground if she had one. But the woman who attempts to grow a plant because her neighbors do so, and who is honest enough to say to herself that "it's more bother than it's worth," will fail because she lacks the true incentive. Such persons ought not to undertake the cultivation of flowers. They cannot grow them with any degree of success, for flowers know who loves them, and will absolutely refuse to flourish under the care of those who do not want them for their own sweet sakes.***Don't fill your windows to overflowing. Give each plant enough elbow-room to admit of its displaying its charms effectively. A crowded plant is never a symmetrical one, and one really symmetrical is worth a score of poorly shaped ones. The fact is, a window of ordinary size cannot satisfactorily accommodate more than eight or ten plants of ordinary size without crowding. There should be space enough between them to allow the sunshine to get to all portions of them. Afree circulation of air among them is quite important.***Don't be a plant-beggar. By that I do not mean that you are not to "swap" plants with your neighbors if it is mutually agreeable to do so. When I speak of a "plant-beggar" I have in mind the person who depends upon her plant-growing friends for enough plants to keep her window well stocked, and her garden also. As soon as she discovers that you have a plant that she would like she does not hesitate to ask for a root or a cutting of it. She never stops to think that you are trying to grow the plant for your own pleasure. It doesn't matter to her how much it interferes with its satisfactory development in complying with her request. If she gets what she wants she is satisfied. The probabilities are that when her plant gets to be as large as yours was when she asked you to divide it with her she'll not hesitate to refuse the woman who suggests that she'd "like one just like it—won't you let me have a slip?" That there are persons quite as selfish as this cannot be denied. But they ought not to be encouraged. Don't gratify them in their unreasonable demands simply because youare afraid of being considered "small" and "stingy."***Don't fail to have a corner in your garden devoted expressly to plants from which to cut for friends and the sick and shut-ins. Perhaps it is more a fancy of mine than anything else, but it has always seemed to me that plants grown for this purpose know what use they are to be put to and do their best in order to help carry out the plan of the person who grows them. If we who have all the flowers of our own that we care for could only know what a vast amount of pleasure we can give our less fortunate neighbors by dividing our supply with them, we would be more liberal than we are.***Don't keep fuchsias in the window in winter, for they are not winter-flowering plants, and the space they will occupy might better be given up to plants from which we can reasonably expect blossoms. They should go into the cellar in November, along with oleanders, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, and plants of similar habit, there to remain until March. Then they can be brought to the light, watered, and again started into growth. It is well to cut most plants that have beenwintered in the cellar back at least half, and allow them to renew most of their branches. While in cold storage they should be given just enough water to prevent the soil from becoming really dry, and no more. Keep them in the dark, if possible, and in a cool place. Do not allow the temperature to go below the frost-point, however.***Don't think because you have only a little bit of ground that it isn't worth while to attempt having a garden. Some of the most delightful gardens I have ever seen were small ones. You will be surprised to find how many plants can be grown in a very small space. Utilize all the nooks and corners about the place for plants.***Don't depend on home-grown seed if you want the best in flowers. The seedsman knows just what to do to secure the best results in seed, and just how to do it. He also knows whatnotto do in raising seed for the market, and this the amateur gardener really knows nothing about. While we often grow fine flowers from seed of our saving, the fact remains that home-grown seed seldom gives entire satisfaction to the person who wants the best.***Don't invest your money in new plants until you are satisfied that they have all the merit claimed for them. As a general thing, the "novelties" sent out every spring at a high price are greatly inferior to the good old stand-bys. We seldom hear anything about them after the second season. Put your money into plants that you know can be depended on.***Don't attempt the culture of hanging-plants unless you are willing to give them the care they must have in order to be satisfactory. Plants suspended in the window, where the temperature is considerably higher than at the sill, speedily dry out, and after this has happened a few times they become diseased and finally die. It will be necessary to apply water daily and in sufficient quantity to saturate all the soil in the pot or basket. Because it requires special effort on the part of the owner to get to suspended plants, they are generally neglected. It is a most excellent plan to have them arranged in such a manner that they can be let down into a tub of water and left there until the soil has absorbed all the water it can retain. This can be done by cords running over pulleys in the ceiling. Try it. Hanging-plants are alwayspleasing when healthily grown, and the window-garden that is without them is not living up to its privileges.***Don't "fuss" with your plants too much. See that they get all the water they need, as much sunshine as possible, plenty of fresh air, an occasional application of some good fertilizer, and shower them frequently to keep them clean, and be satisfied with this treatment. They object to being treated as some mothers treat their children, who would be much better off if they were let alone after actual wants were provided for. Don't coddle your plants.***Don't start dahlias into growth in the house early in the season, thinking that you are going to "get the start of the season" by so doing. We used to think that, because the dahlia came from a country where the summer was long, we must get it to growing in March or April, and we set the tubers out in pots and boxes and forced them to make a rapid and weak growth so early in the season that long before it was safe to put them out in the garden they were poor, spindling things, with just enough vitality in them to make it possible to say that they were alive. Whenthey were planted out the change from indoors to outdoors had such a debilitating effect on them that for weeks they were undecided whether to live or die. If they lived we considered ourselves fortunate if we got a dozen flowers from each plant. Nowadays we understand the plant better. We don't attempt to start it in the house. We wait until the weather and the ground are warm and then we plant the tubers in the garden where they are to grow and bloom. We make the soil very rich. The plants begin to grow shortly after being planted, and in late August they come into bloom, and all through September they yield such a profusion of flowers as we never thought of getting from the plants when grown after the old method. The dahlia is one of our very best late-summer flowering plants when well grown. It must have a rich soil—it must not be allowed to get dry at the roots at any time—and it must be given substantial support, as its stalks are extremely brittle and easily broken down by hard winds and heavy rains. Dahlias are very effective when planted in the border among shrubs and perennials. There are few plants with a wider range of rich and brilliant color. By all means give them a place in your garden.***Don't sow hollyhock seed in the spring expecting to get flowers from your plants the same season. They will not bloom the first year from seed.***Don't allow your pansies to bloom—ortryto bloom—during the hot, dry, midsummer season. They may producesomeflowers, but they will be so inferior in quality that you will get no pleasure from them. I would advise cutting away all the old branches the latter part of July and encouraging the plants to renew themselves preparatory to fall flowering. If this is done, and strong, healthy growth results from the liberal application of a good fertilizer during August, you may expect a generous crop of large, fine flowers all through the autumn. If it isnotdone, and the plants are allowed to keep on trying to grow through the trying period of late summer, you will get few flowers and no really good ones.***Don't allow any plant to develop seed if you want it to keep on blooming after its first flowering period. The aim of all plants is to reproduce themselves, and this can only be done by seed development. If we interfere with the ordinary process of seed productionby cutting away all flowers as soon as they begin to fade, the plants will at once make another effort to perpetuate their kind, and, as the first step in this direction is the production of flowers, it will be readily seen that it is possible to make many of them bloom all through the season.***Don't expect good flowers of any kind unless you are willing to give them the care and attention they require. If you are not willing to do this, or if, for any reason, youcannotdo it, don't attempt gardening. Have enough regard for the flowers to not undertake their culture unless you can do them justice.***Don't throw away plants of any kind. Somebody will always be glad to get those you have no use for.***Don't neglect a plant to-day and think you can make up for that neglect by being very good to it to-morrow. Plants must receive carewhen it is needed, and this care should be given regularly, instead of spasmodically, to be effective.***Don't begin to water your plants in yourgarden in a dry season unless you can keep on doing so as long as the dry spell lasts.***Don't fail to keep close watch of your asters. Of late years many failures have resulted from the attack of a black beetle, which comes from no one knows where—comes so suddenly and does such deadly work in so short a time that the plants are often ruined before the presence of the pest is suspected. There is but one way of getting rid of this pest, and that is to make use of nicoticide, the standard remedy for all plant troubles of this kind. A small quantity of this extract of tobacco, diluted with water and sprayed over all portions of each plant, will effectually rout the enemy if applied promptly and thoroughly. Unless something is done as soon as the beetle is discovered, it will destroy every plant. Be on the lookout for it constantly, acting on the supposition that it will be sure to put in an appearance some time during the summer. Get ready in advance for prompt action against it by laying in a supply of the insecticide at the beginning of the summer.***Don't think that your house plants need repotting two or three times a year if they aregrowing in good-sized pots. Once a year is quite often enough if you apply fertilizers at intervals of four or five months. Plants in small pots may outgrow their quarters, and these should be shifted to those of larger size when they have filled the old ones with roots.***Don't make the mistake of putting small plants in large pots, thinking that they will be benefited by it. Wait for them to signify a desire for more room by filling all the soil of a small pot with roots. A plant with a small, weak root-system is often seriously injured by giving it a large pot to grow in, as it is not in a condition to make use of all the nutriment in a large amount of soil. A plant treated in this manner will often develop a sort of vegetable dyspepsia as a result of giving it more food than it can digest properly.***Don't be in too great a hurry to obtain results. Some persons think to accomplish this by frequent applications of strong fertilizers in large quantities. This will force plants to a rapid and always unhealthy growth, from which, later on, there is sure to be a most discouraging reaction. Be content with a healthy growth, and give your plants a chance to make that naturally. More plantsare injured by overfeeding than from any other cause.***Don't think that you can learn all there is to know about gardening from books. Books will furnish the theory. You must contribute experience in order to attain success.***Don't neglect your plants while they are growing. Then is just the time to give them the training that is necessary to make them shapely. The fact is, plants are very much like children in the family. Let them have their own way about everything while they are growing up and you will find that when they have grown up they are not at all like what you would like to have them, in many respects, and you don't see how you are going to make them conform to your ideas of what they ought to be, since it is impossible to make children of them again and give you another chance at their development. Begin with the training of your plants while they are small, and train them as they grow.***Don't treat all your plants alike. Study their peculiarities and give them such treatment as will fit those peculiarities. To illustrate this idea: a calla likes a good deal ofwater; a geranium is satisfied with a moderately moist soil; a cactus does best when allowed to get really dry at certain seasons. If we were to treat these three plants alike, what do you suppose the result would be? Don't ignore the peculiarities of your plants if you want them to do well.***Don't neglect to prepare for an annual invasion of your roses by bugs, worms, and insects. You can safely count on their coming, but if you are prepared for it you can speedily put the enemy to rout. The best plan is to act on the offensive. Head off the pests by making applications of nicoticide before they make their appearance. You can do this, for, if their advance-agent arrives and finds the tang of tobacco all over the plants, he will go back and advise the others to seek more agreeable quarters. Begin to spray your bushes early in the season, and keep on doing so until after the flowering period is over. There will be no likelihood of an invasion after that, as the enemies of the rose do their deadly work early in the season.***Don't get the idea for a moment, as so many do, that all you need to do to have a fine lot of plants is to put some soil—anykind that happens to be handiest—in a pot, set out a plant in it, and, presto! you will have just as fine a lot of plants as your neighbor who searches here and there and everywhere until she finds just the kind of soil that experience tells her the plants must have if she would have good ones. She gives some of her time daily to caring for them, while you expect your plants to take care of themselves. That will never answer. If you do your share of the work the plants will do theirs, but you must not expect them to do all, any more than you must expect them to make a strong, healthy growth in a soil that is unsuited to their requirements or sadly lacking in nutriment.***Don't build up a great fire in stove or furnace if you discover that your plants have been nipped by frost, thinking to save them by "thawing them out." Heat at such a time is the very thing needed to complete the misfortune. Put them at once in a room where the temperature can be kept just a little above the frost-point, and shower them thoroughly with cold water. This will extract the frost from them so gradually that it will be possible to save many of them unless they are badly frozen. Keep themin a cool room for three or four days. It may be necessary to cut away most, or all, of the branches of some of them. Unless the degree of cold to which they were subjected was sufficient to freeze the soil in the pot, many of them will throw up new shoots from their roots after a little; therefore don't throw out a plant that has been obliged to part with all its top until it has been given a chance to make a new start in life.***Don't put your house plants out of doors for the summer until the weather has become warm and can be depended on to remain so. The first of June will be quite early enough.***Don't plant them out in the garden-beds, thinking thereby to save yourself the work of taking care of them during the summer and of benefiting them at the same time. Of course they will take care of themselves there, and very likely make a much more luxuriant growth than they would in pots, but when fall comes and you have to lift and repot them you will find that more hard work is required of you than you would have expended on them throughout the summer if you had kept them in pots. As for the benefit to the plants—where will it come in? They willhave made such a rampant growth of roots that most of them will have to be sacrificed in reducing the earth containing them to the size of the pots you put them into, and this at the very time when the poor plants ought to be at their best in order to successfully withstand the unfavorable conditions resulting from the change from outdoors to indoors. Plants treated in this manner receive a check that they seldom fully recover from during the entire winter. Instead of saving yourself work and doing a kindness to your plants, you have done just the contrary.

GARDEN DON'TS

Don't let your springtime enthusiasm lead you to undertake more than youfeel quite sureof being able to carry out. Keep in mind the fact that there will be work to do all through the season in order to make your garden a success, and think over what the result will be if you fail to give your plants all the care they need after you have got them well under way. Don't give them a chance to say that you haven't given them fair treatment because your enthusiasm waned with the season.

Don't attempt to grow all the plants that the florists describe so attractively in their catalogues. Concentrate your efforts on the best ones—that is, the ones best adapted to amateur gardening. Give these the best possible care. This advice applies with equal pertinence to all phases of gardening, outdoors or indoors.

Don't pattern your garden after your neighbor's. Think out original features for the garden you propose to make, if you choose to do so, but don't aim to be so extremely original that the originality of it will attract more attention than the flowers in it. These should receive first consideration always.

Don't waste your time on "carpet-bedding" unless you make use of plants with colored foliage in carrying out your designs. Flowering plants are practically worthless for this purpose, as they have such a tendency to reach out beyond the limits assigned them that all distinctness in the outline of your pattern will soon be lost sight of. About all that seems worth while for the amateur gardener to do in the arrangement of her plant is to so use them that strong masses of color can be produced. If care is taken to choose those of harmonious colors, these can be so arranged as to heighten the general effect by contrast.

Don't set out to have a garden or to grow house plants unless you have the true gardening instinct. By that I mean a love for plants and flowers that would make youattemptto grow them under circumstanceswhich your own judgment tells you make success impossible. The woman who tries to grow a geranium in a tin can in a window four or five stories up in the air because of her love for flowers would be almost sure to make a splendid success of a garden on the ground if she had one. But the woman who attempts to grow a plant because her neighbors do so, and who is honest enough to say to herself that "it's more bother than it's worth," will fail because she lacks the true incentive. Such persons ought not to undertake the cultivation of flowers. They cannot grow them with any degree of success, for flowers know who loves them, and will absolutely refuse to flourish under the care of those who do not want them for their own sweet sakes.

Don't fill your windows to overflowing. Give each plant enough elbow-room to admit of its displaying its charms effectively. A crowded plant is never a symmetrical one, and one really symmetrical is worth a score of poorly shaped ones. The fact is, a window of ordinary size cannot satisfactorily accommodate more than eight or ten plants of ordinary size without crowding. There should be space enough between them to allow the sunshine to get to all portions of them. Afree circulation of air among them is quite important.

Don't be a plant-beggar. By that I do not mean that you are not to "swap" plants with your neighbors if it is mutually agreeable to do so. When I speak of a "plant-beggar" I have in mind the person who depends upon her plant-growing friends for enough plants to keep her window well stocked, and her garden also. As soon as she discovers that you have a plant that she would like she does not hesitate to ask for a root or a cutting of it. She never stops to think that you are trying to grow the plant for your own pleasure. It doesn't matter to her how much it interferes with its satisfactory development in complying with her request. If she gets what she wants she is satisfied. The probabilities are that when her plant gets to be as large as yours was when she asked you to divide it with her she'll not hesitate to refuse the woman who suggests that she'd "like one just like it—won't you let me have a slip?" That there are persons quite as selfish as this cannot be denied. But they ought not to be encouraged. Don't gratify them in their unreasonable demands simply because youare afraid of being considered "small" and "stingy."

Don't fail to have a corner in your garden devoted expressly to plants from which to cut for friends and the sick and shut-ins. Perhaps it is more a fancy of mine than anything else, but it has always seemed to me that plants grown for this purpose know what use they are to be put to and do their best in order to help carry out the plan of the person who grows them. If we who have all the flowers of our own that we care for could only know what a vast amount of pleasure we can give our less fortunate neighbors by dividing our supply with them, we would be more liberal than we are.

Don't keep fuchsias in the window in winter, for they are not winter-flowering plants, and the space they will occupy might better be given up to plants from which we can reasonably expect blossoms. They should go into the cellar in November, along with oleanders, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, and plants of similar habit, there to remain until March. Then they can be brought to the light, watered, and again started into growth. It is well to cut most plants that have beenwintered in the cellar back at least half, and allow them to renew most of their branches. While in cold storage they should be given just enough water to prevent the soil from becoming really dry, and no more. Keep them in the dark, if possible, and in a cool place. Do not allow the temperature to go below the frost-point, however.

Don't think because you have only a little bit of ground that it isn't worth while to attempt having a garden. Some of the most delightful gardens I have ever seen were small ones. You will be surprised to find how many plants can be grown in a very small space. Utilize all the nooks and corners about the place for plants.

Don't depend on home-grown seed if you want the best in flowers. The seedsman knows just what to do to secure the best results in seed, and just how to do it. He also knows whatnotto do in raising seed for the market, and this the amateur gardener really knows nothing about. While we often grow fine flowers from seed of our saving, the fact remains that home-grown seed seldom gives entire satisfaction to the person who wants the best.

Don't invest your money in new plants until you are satisfied that they have all the merit claimed for them. As a general thing, the "novelties" sent out every spring at a high price are greatly inferior to the good old stand-bys. We seldom hear anything about them after the second season. Put your money into plants that you know can be depended on.

Don't attempt the culture of hanging-plants unless you are willing to give them the care they must have in order to be satisfactory. Plants suspended in the window, where the temperature is considerably higher than at the sill, speedily dry out, and after this has happened a few times they become diseased and finally die. It will be necessary to apply water daily and in sufficient quantity to saturate all the soil in the pot or basket. Because it requires special effort on the part of the owner to get to suspended plants, they are generally neglected. It is a most excellent plan to have them arranged in such a manner that they can be let down into a tub of water and left there until the soil has absorbed all the water it can retain. This can be done by cords running over pulleys in the ceiling. Try it. Hanging-plants are alwayspleasing when healthily grown, and the window-garden that is without them is not living up to its privileges.

Don't "fuss" with your plants too much. See that they get all the water they need, as much sunshine as possible, plenty of fresh air, an occasional application of some good fertilizer, and shower them frequently to keep them clean, and be satisfied with this treatment. They object to being treated as some mothers treat their children, who would be much better off if they were let alone after actual wants were provided for. Don't coddle your plants.

Don't start dahlias into growth in the house early in the season, thinking that you are going to "get the start of the season" by so doing. We used to think that, because the dahlia came from a country where the summer was long, we must get it to growing in March or April, and we set the tubers out in pots and boxes and forced them to make a rapid and weak growth so early in the season that long before it was safe to put them out in the garden they were poor, spindling things, with just enough vitality in them to make it possible to say that they were alive. Whenthey were planted out the change from indoors to outdoors had such a debilitating effect on them that for weeks they were undecided whether to live or die. If they lived we considered ourselves fortunate if we got a dozen flowers from each plant. Nowadays we understand the plant better. We don't attempt to start it in the house. We wait until the weather and the ground are warm and then we plant the tubers in the garden where they are to grow and bloom. We make the soil very rich. The plants begin to grow shortly after being planted, and in late August they come into bloom, and all through September they yield such a profusion of flowers as we never thought of getting from the plants when grown after the old method. The dahlia is one of our very best late-summer flowering plants when well grown. It must have a rich soil—it must not be allowed to get dry at the roots at any time—and it must be given substantial support, as its stalks are extremely brittle and easily broken down by hard winds and heavy rains. Dahlias are very effective when planted in the border among shrubs and perennials. There are few plants with a wider range of rich and brilliant color. By all means give them a place in your garden.

Don't sow hollyhock seed in the spring expecting to get flowers from your plants the same season. They will not bloom the first year from seed.

Don't allow your pansies to bloom—ortryto bloom—during the hot, dry, midsummer season. They may producesomeflowers, but they will be so inferior in quality that you will get no pleasure from them. I would advise cutting away all the old branches the latter part of July and encouraging the plants to renew themselves preparatory to fall flowering. If this is done, and strong, healthy growth results from the liberal application of a good fertilizer during August, you may expect a generous crop of large, fine flowers all through the autumn. If it isnotdone, and the plants are allowed to keep on trying to grow through the trying period of late summer, you will get few flowers and no really good ones.

Don't allow any plant to develop seed if you want it to keep on blooming after its first flowering period. The aim of all plants is to reproduce themselves, and this can only be done by seed development. If we interfere with the ordinary process of seed productionby cutting away all flowers as soon as they begin to fade, the plants will at once make another effort to perpetuate their kind, and, as the first step in this direction is the production of flowers, it will be readily seen that it is possible to make many of them bloom all through the season.

Don't expect good flowers of any kind unless you are willing to give them the care and attention they require. If you are not willing to do this, or if, for any reason, youcannotdo it, don't attempt gardening. Have enough regard for the flowers to not undertake their culture unless you can do them justice.

Don't throw away plants of any kind. Somebody will always be glad to get those you have no use for.

Don't neglect a plant to-day and think you can make up for that neglect by being very good to it to-morrow. Plants must receive carewhen it is needed, and this care should be given regularly, instead of spasmodically, to be effective.

Don't begin to water your plants in yourgarden in a dry season unless you can keep on doing so as long as the dry spell lasts.

Don't fail to keep close watch of your asters. Of late years many failures have resulted from the attack of a black beetle, which comes from no one knows where—comes so suddenly and does such deadly work in so short a time that the plants are often ruined before the presence of the pest is suspected. There is but one way of getting rid of this pest, and that is to make use of nicoticide, the standard remedy for all plant troubles of this kind. A small quantity of this extract of tobacco, diluted with water and sprayed over all portions of each plant, will effectually rout the enemy if applied promptly and thoroughly. Unless something is done as soon as the beetle is discovered, it will destroy every plant. Be on the lookout for it constantly, acting on the supposition that it will be sure to put in an appearance some time during the summer. Get ready in advance for prompt action against it by laying in a supply of the insecticide at the beginning of the summer.

Don't think that your house plants need repotting two or three times a year if they aregrowing in good-sized pots. Once a year is quite often enough if you apply fertilizers at intervals of four or five months. Plants in small pots may outgrow their quarters, and these should be shifted to those of larger size when they have filled the old ones with roots.

Don't make the mistake of putting small plants in large pots, thinking that they will be benefited by it. Wait for them to signify a desire for more room by filling all the soil of a small pot with roots. A plant with a small, weak root-system is often seriously injured by giving it a large pot to grow in, as it is not in a condition to make use of all the nutriment in a large amount of soil. A plant treated in this manner will often develop a sort of vegetable dyspepsia as a result of giving it more food than it can digest properly.

Don't be in too great a hurry to obtain results. Some persons think to accomplish this by frequent applications of strong fertilizers in large quantities. This will force plants to a rapid and always unhealthy growth, from which, later on, there is sure to be a most discouraging reaction. Be content with a healthy growth, and give your plants a chance to make that naturally. More plantsare injured by overfeeding than from any other cause.

Don't think that you can learn all there is to know about gardening from books. Books will furnish the theory. You must contribute experience in order to attain success.

Don't neglect your plants while they are growing. Then is just the time to give them the training that is necessary to make them shapely. The fact is, plants are very much like children in the family. Let them have their own way about everything while they are growing up and you will find that when they have grown up they are not at all like what you would like to have them, in many respects, and you don't see how you are going to make them conform to your ideas of what they ought to be, since it is impossible to make children of them again and give you another chance at their development. Begin with the training of your plants while they are small, and train them as they grow.

Don't treat all your plants alike. Study their peculiarities and give them such treatment as will fit those peculiarities. To illustrate this idea: a calla likes a good deal ofwater; a geranium is satisfied with a moderately moist soil; a cactus does best when allowed to get really dry at certain seasons. If we were to treat these three plants alike, what do you suppose the result would be? Don't ignore the peculiarities of your plants if you want them to do well.

Don't neglect to prepare for an annual invasion of your roses by bugs, worms, and insects. You can safely count on their coming, but if you are prepared for it you can speedily put the enemy to rout. The best plan is to act on the offensive. Head off the pests by making applications of nicoticide before they make their appearance. You can do this, for, if their advance-agent arrives and finds the tang of tobacco all over the plants, he will go back and advise the others to seek more agreeable quarters. Begin to spray your bushes early in the season, and keep on doing so until after the flowering period is over. There will be no likelihood of an invasion after that, as the enemies of the rose do their deadly work early in the season.

Don't get the idea for a moment, as so many do, that all you need to do to have a fine lot of plants is to put some soil—anykind that happens to be handiest—in a pot, set out a plant in it, and, presto! you will have just as fine a lot of plants as your neighbor who searches here and there and everywhere until she finds just the kind of soil that experience tells her the plants must have if she would have good ones. She gives some of her time daily to caring for them, while you expect your plants to take care of themselves. That will never answer. If you do your share of the work the plants will do theirs, but you must not expect them to do all, any more than you must expect them to make a strong, healthy growth in a soil that is unsuited to their requirements or sadly lacking in nutriment.

Don't build up a great fire in stove or furnace if you discover that your plants have been nipped by frost, thinking to save them by "thawing them out." Heat at such a time is the very thing needed to complete the misfortune. Put them at once in a room where the temperature can be kept just a little above the frost-point, and shower them thoroughly with cold water. This will extract the frost from them so gradually that it will be possible to save many of them unless they are badly frozen. Keep themin a cool room for three or four days. It may be necessary to cut away most, or all, of the branches of some of them. Unless the degree of cold to which they were subjected was sufficient to freeze the soil in the pot, many of them will throw up new shoots from their roots after a little; therefore don't throw out a plant that has been obliged to part with all its top until it has been given a chance to make a new start in life.

Don't put your house plants out of doors for the summer until the weather has become warm and can be depended on to remain so. The first of June will be quite early enough.

Don't plant them out in the garden-beds, thinking thereby to save yourself the work of taking care of them during the summer and of benefiting them at the same time. Of course they will take care of themselves there, and very likely make a much more luxuriant growth than they would in pots, but when fall comes and you have to lift and repot them you will find that more hard work is required of you than you would have expended on them throughout the summer if you had kept them in pots. As for the benefit to the plants—where will it come in? They willhave made such a rampant growth of roots that most of them will have to be sacrificed in reducing the earth containing them to the size of the pots you put them into, and this at the very time when the poor plants ought to be at their best in order to successfully withstand the unfavorable conditions resulting from the change from outdoors to indoors. Plants treated in this manner receive a check that they seldom fully recover from during the entire winter. Instead of saving yourself work and doing a kindness to your plants, you have done just the contrary.

XIXA CHAPTER OF HELPFUL HINTSIn some of the foregoing chapters I have had something to say about the advisability of using seed in which each color is kept by itself in order to secure the greatest possible degree of color-harmony in the garden.Many persons tell us that they cannot afford to pay the extra prices which the seedsmen put on unmixed seed. It is true that it costs more than the seed in which all colors are jumbled together, and it is also true that plants grown from it are really no better than those grown from mixed seed, but the fact remains that it gives so much more satisfactory results, from an artistic standpoint, that it is not throwing money away, as some claim, to make use of it. Of course if one gets as much pleasure from a mass of color without regard to harmony as from fewer colors all in perfect harmony with one another,it would hardly be worth while to invest more money in such seed. But where the finest possible effects are desired I contend that unmixed seed is cheapest, in that sense of the term that means the greatest satisfaction.There is a way by which unmixed seed can be obtained without its really costing each person more than mixed seed. Every amateur gardener knows that more plants of a kind can be grown from one package of seed than a person cares for in the average-sized garden. Nine times out of ten only part of the seed in the package is sown and the rest is either discarded or given away to friends. Now if those who would like to secure the best results in gardening will get up a seed club among their flower-loving friends, and confine their selection to packages in which each color is by itself, the seed in those packages can be divided among the various members of the club, and each person will have enough to meet her requirements, and this at a less price than she would have to pay for ordinary mixed seed if she were to order alone, because none of the seed would be wasted.Try the seed-club plan for a season and see if it doesn't work out to your satisfaction.If you are likely to have more plants of akind than you care for, don't throw any of the seedlings away when you thin them out. There are poor children in every neighborhood that would be delighted to get them. Never waste any plants that are worth growing.If a plant is wanted for low beds under the windows of the dwelling or near the paths, portulacca is about as satisfactory as anything I know of. It blooms with great profusion throughout the entire season. Its colors range from pure white through pink, yellow, and violet to dark crimson. It is a plant that seems to delight in locations exposed to the hottest sunshine, and in soils so lacking in moisture that ordinary plants would live but a short time in it. It is enabled to do this because of the succulent nature of its foliage. Indeed, the portulacca is a vegetable salamander so far as its ability to stand heat and drought is concerned. Those who have had experience with purslane in the vegetable garden will understand something about the nature of this plant, for the two are closely related.In furnishing support for vines that clamber over the walls of the house, do not use strips of cloth, as so many do. The cloth is good for a season only. After the vines havebecome large and heavy their weight will be sufficient to tear the cloth loose from the tacks that held it in place, especially after a heavy rain or in strong winds, and down will come the plant. It will be found impossible to put it back in place in anything like a satisfactory manner. For supporting large, stiff vines I make use of screw-hooks, which are easily inserted in wooden walls. Turn the hooks in until there is just enough room between their points and the wall to admit of slipping the vine in. Not one vine in fifty will work loose from the grip of the hooks.Some vines are not adapted to this treatment. These I support by using strips of leather instead of cloth. The leather should be soaked in oil for twenty-four hours before using, to make it pliable and water-resisting. Do not use small tacks, as these do not have sufficient hold on the wood to make them dependable. Use nails at least an inch long, with good-sized heads.Some persons object to the use of vines about the house, especially if it is of wood, claiming that they retain moisture to such an extent as to soon injure the walls. I have convinced myself that facts are directly contrary to this theory. The overlapping leaves act as shingles—shedding rain and preventingit from getting to the walls against which the vines are trained.Try to interest the children in the making of a fern-garden and a collection of native plants. A little encouragement at the beginning will do this, and after the project is well under way it will not need encouraging, for the little folks will be so fascinated by it that there will be little likelihood of their abandoning the undertaking. Take half a dozen or more children to the woods with you, with baskets in which to bring home their specimens. Show them how to take up the plants in such a manner that a considerable amount of soil will adhere to their roots. Help them pack them snugly into the baskets to prevent their being shaken about in transit, thereby losing the soil taken up with them. If the day happens to be a warm and sunny one, have them sprinkle the plants and pack some wet moss about them to keep them as fresh as possible until they can be planted in the home garden. Discourage them from taking large plants in preference to small ones, as they will most likely be eager to do. Explain that the small ones stand the best chance of living, and that nothing is gained by choosing large ones, because these will be sure to lose their foliage, and that, even ifthey live, which nine out of ten will not, they will receive such a check by removal that the small plants will soon get the start of them.It will greatly add to the pleasure of plant-collecting if you make a kind of picnic excursion of it. Take along something good to eat, and spend half a day in the woods, if possible. You will enjoy it as much as the children will. Don't dig your plants, however, until you are about ready to start for home, for it is quite important that they should be planted as soon as possible after being taken up. When they are set out, water them well and shade them for several days.Give all plants taken from shady places a location as nearly like that from which they were taken as possible. A fern that grew in shade will be pretty sure to die if planted in a place fully exposed to the sun.It helps matters very much if you can have a load of woods earth drawn to the home garden to plant these children of the forest in. They do not take kindly to loam, after having been grown in loose, porous soil, though many of them are strong enough to adapt themselves to ordinary garden conditions.I know of many neighborhoods in which clubs for collecting native plants have beenformed, and the children who are in these clubs have become intensely interested in their gardens of native plants. This is as it should be, for we have many beautiful wild flowers that are better worth growing than foreign kinds for which large prices are asked. Pride in our home plants ought to be encouraged, and there is no better way of doing this than by interesting the boys and girls in the making of a wild garden.The tuberose is a plant which everybody admires, but which is seldom seen in amateur gardeners' collections. I think the general impression is that it is not an easy plant to grow. Such is not the case, however. It can be grown successfully by any one who is willing to give it a little attention. Tubers should be obtained in March or April. They should be planted in pots containing sandy garden loam into which a liberal amount of good fertilizer has been thoroughly worked. If the tubers are small, two or three can be put into each seven-inch pot used. Before planting them the mass of dried roots which will generally be found adhering to the base of the tuber should be cut away with a thin, sharp-bladed knife. If this is not done, these roots often decay and the diseased condition will be communicated to the tuberand cause it to die, or, if death does not result, to become so unhealthy that it will fail to bloom.The plants can be turned out of their pots when the weather becomes warm, and grown on in the garden through the summer, but I would not advise this, for it will be necessary to lift and pot them before frosty nights come, as they are very tender, and a little disturbance of their roots at this time may cause their buds to blast. I would urge keeping them in pots throughout the season, as, if this is done, you always have them under control. The flowers of the tuberose are ivory-white in color. They are of thick, waxen texture, and have that heavy, rich fragrance that characterizes the magnolia and the cape jasmine of the South. They are borne in a spike at the extremity of tall stalks, thus being very effective for cutting. Because of their thick texture they last for a long time after cutting. Plants in pots remain in bloom for a month or six weeks. Every lover of deliciously fragrant flowers will do well to grow at least half a dozen of them to do duty in the window-garden in fall.A second crop of flowers need not be expected from a tuber that has borne one crop. In order to make sure of bloom it will benecessary to purchase fresh tubers each spring.The abutilon is an old favorite among house plants, and its popularity is well deserved. It is of as easy culture as a geranium. Give it a good soil—preferably loam—drain its pot well, keep the soil evenly moist but never wet, and that is about all the care it will require. It may be necessary to prune it now and then during its early stages of growth in order to secure symmetrical shape, but this is easily done by pinching off the ends of such branches as seem inclined to get the start of others, and keeping them from making more growth until the others have caught up with them. Pinching back branches that do not develop side shoots will generally result in their branching freely. In this way you secure a bushy, compact plant. In order to make a little tree of the abutilon—and it is most satisfactory when grown in that manner—train it to one straight stalk until it reaches the height where you want the head to form. Allow no side branches to grow during this period of the plant's development. When three or four feet tall, nip off the top and keep it nipped off until as many branches as you think necessary have started at the top of the stalk. Allow none to growbelow. By persevering in this treatment you will succeed in getting a number of branches with which to form a treelike head.There are several varieties of abutilon. Some have orange flowers, some red, some yellow, some pink, and some pure white. These flowers are bell-shaped and pendent. One name for the plant is the Chinese bell-flower because of its bell-like blossoms. Another is flowering maple, because of the resemblance in shape of its foliage to our native maple. There are two or three varieties with beautifully variegated foliage in which green and white and yellow are about equally distributed. I am always glad to speak a good word for this plant because of its beauty, its ease of culture, its constancy of bloom, and the fact that it is seldom attacked by insects.Another most deserving old plant is the rose geranium. This used to be found in nearly all collections of house plants. It is as easily grown as the flowering geranium. Its foliage is very pleasing, being as finely cut as some varieties of fern. It is delightfully fragrant. A leaf or two will be found a most desirable addition to a buttonhole or corsage bouquet. It can be grown in tree form by giving it the pinching-back treatment advisedfor the abutilon, or it can be grown as a bush by beginning the pinching process when it is only three or four inches high, thus obliging it to throw out several stalks near the base of the plant.Old plants of oleander may easily be renewed when they have become so large as to be unwieldy, or have outgrown the space that can be given up to them. Cut awayallthe branches to within four or five inches of the main stalk, leaving nothing but a mass of stubs. In a very short time new branches will be sent out. There will be so many of them that it will be necessary to remove the larger share of them. If this pruning is done in early spring, when the plant is brought from cold storage, the new growth ought to bear a crop of flowers in late summer. The following season the plant should be literally covered with bloom during the greater part of summer, these blossoms being as large and fine in all respects as those borne by the plant when young. I know of no plant that is more tractable than this one, and certainly we have few that are more beautiful. Large specimens are magnificent for porch and veranda decoration in summer. In December they should go into the cellar, to remain there until March.Plants with variegated foliage are becoming more in demand yearly. Japanese maize, with long leaves striped with white and cream, is very effective when grown in a mass in the center of a bed. The Japanese hop, with foliage heavily marbled with creamy white, is quite as attractive without flowers as many of our flowering vines are. Ricinus, with enormous foliage of a lustrous coppery bronze, will be found far more "tropical" in effect then the cannas and caladiums we see so much of nowadays. The leaves of this plant often measure a yard across. If you want it to be most effective, plant it in some exposed place where it will have plenty of room to spread its branches.From what I have said in a preceding chapter it will be readily understood that I am not an admirer of "carpet-bedding" except where plants with small, richly colored foliage are made use of. These can be pruned in such a manner as to keep each color inside its proper limit, but flowering plants will straggle across the lines assigned them, and all clearness of outline in the "pattern" will soon be lost. But when plants are located with a view to securing color contrast, very fine effects can be obtained from them. A circular bed filled withpink, white, and pale-yellowphlox drummondiiin rows of each color will be found pleasing, and it has the merit of being easily made.If a round bed has scarlet salvia for its center, surrounded with yellow calliopsis, or California poppy, it will afford a mass of most intense color that will produce a most brilliant effect. A bed of pink flowering geraniums—pink, mind you, not scarlet or any shade of red—bordered with lavender ageratum, will be found extremely attractive if care is taken to cut away all trusses of bloom from the geraniums as soon as they have begun to fade. If this is not done the bed will have a draggled, slovenly effect.Scarlet salvia combined with euphorbia, better known as "snow-on-the-mountain," will be found very effective, the white and green of the euphorbia bringing out the scarlet of the salvia most vividly, and affording such a strong contrast that a bed of these two plants will always challenge admiration.The euphorbia will be found a very useful plant for almost any place in beds or borders where something seems needed to relieve the prevailing color. It deserves more attention than it gets.The impression seems to prevail that many plants ought to retain their old leaves indefinitely. They will not do this, however. Leaves ripen after a time, and the plant will shed them, as all deciduous plants shed theirs in fall. Therefore if you find the lower leaves on your ficus turning, yellow and dropping, don't be frightened. The plant is simply going through one of the processes of nature.But if a good many of the leaves fall all at once it will be well to look for some other explanation of the plant's action. The loss of foliage may come from lack of moisture in the soil, or the roots of the plant may be pot-bound. Examination will show if either is the case. If the soil is found to be dry, more water should be given. If the pot is filled with roots, repot the plant, giving it more root room. The owners of plants should take all these things into consideration before coming to any conclusion as to what the cause of trouble is. Unless they do so there will have to be "guesswork" relative to it, and that is never safe or satisfactory. Trouble may come from overwatering, or from lack of good drainage, or a soil deficient in nutrition. You see, it is necessary to study these matters from several angles, so to speak,as the trouble complained of may have its origin in any one of the conditions mentioned, and not much can be done to remedy matters until one has made an examination that brings to light the facts in the case. These known, it will be a comparatively easy matter to determine the treatment required, for the conditions that are found to exist will, to a great extent, indicate in almost every instance the remedy needed.Some good vines for window-box culture are:Madeira vine.—Heart-shaped foliage of a rich, glossy green. Very rapid grower.Tradescantia.—Green, green striped with white, and olive striped with Indian red. Quick grower.Vinca Harrisonii.—Dark-green foliage, edged with yellow.Senecio.—More commonly known as German ivy. Pretty, ivy-shaped foliage of a clear, bright green. Very rapid grower. Needs frequent pinching back to make it branch freely.Glechoma.—Green, variegated with bright yellow.Othonna.—Better known as "pickle-plant" because of its cylindrical foliage, which resemblesa miniature cucumber. Has pretty yellow flowers.Saxifraga.—Leaves of graying olive sprinkled with white.Ivy-leaved geraniums.—There are many varieties, some with pink, some with white, and others with red flowers. These are excellent where flowering plants of drooping habit are desired. A box edged with these plants, especially the pink variety, with white Marguerites—better known as Paris daisies—in the center, will be found especially pleasing.In window-boxes having a northern exposure such plants as Boston and Whitman fern,asparagus plumosus,asparagus Sprengerii, and any of the fibrous-rooted begonias will be found very effective. These plants can be turned out of their pots and planted in the earth in the box, or the pots in which they grow can be sunk in the soil. This is in several respects the best way, as in fall, when the window-box has to be discontinued, the plants will not have to be repotted.Petunias are excellent plants for window-box culture. They can be made to grow in upright form by giving them a little support, or they can be allowed to droop over the sidesof the box. A combination of purple and white varieties will be found pleasing. This plant comes into bloom early in the season, when grown from seed, and it continues to bloom until cold weather comes.THE END

A CHAPTER OF HELPFUL HINTS

In some of the foregoing chapters I have had something to say about the advisability of using seed in which each color is kept by itself in order to secure the greatest possible degree of color-harmony in the garden.

Many persons tell us that they cannot afford to pay the extra prices which the seedsmen put on unmixed seed. It is true that it costs more than the seed in which all colors are jumbled together, and it is also true that plants grown from it are really no better than those grown from mixed seed, but the fact remains that it gives so much more satisfactory results, from an artistic standpoint, that it is not throwing money away, as some claim, to make use of it. Of course if one gets as much pleasure from a mass of color without regard to harmony as from fewer colors all in perfect harmony with one another,it would hardly be worth while to invest more money in such seed. But where the finest possible effects are desired I contend that unmixed seed is cheapest, in that sense of the term that means the greatest satisfaction.

There is a way by which unmixed seed can be obtained without its really costing each person more than mixed seed. Every amateur gardener knows that more plants of a kind can be grown from one package of seed than a person cares for in the average-sized garden. Nine times out of ten only part of the seed in the package is sown and the rest is either discarded or given away to friends. Now if those who would like to secure the best results in gardening will get up a seed club among their flower-loving friends, and confine their selection to packages in which each color is by itself, the seed in those packages can be divided among the various members of the club, and each person will have enough to meet her requirements, and this at a less price than she would have to pay for ordinary mixed seed if she were to order alone, because none of the seed would be wasted.

Try the seed-club plan for a season and see if it doesn't work out to your satisfaction.

If you are likely to have more plants of akind than you care for, don't throw any of the seedlings away when you thin them out. There are poor children in every neighborhood that would be delighted to get them. Never waste any plants that are worth growing.

If a plant is wanted for low beds under the windows of the dwelling or near the paths, portulacca is about as satisfactory as anything I know of. It blooms with great profusion throughout the entire season. Its colors range from pure white through pink, yellow, and violet to dark crimson. It is a plant that seems to delight in locations exposed to the hottest sunshine, and in soils so lacking in moisture that ordinary plants would live but a short time in it. It is enabled to do this because of the succulent nature of its foliage. Indeed, the portulacca is a vegetable salamander so far as its ability to stand heat and drought is concerned. Those who have had experience with purslane in the vegetable garden will understand something about the nature of this plant, for the two are closely related.

In furnishing support for vines that clamber over the walls of the house, do not use strips of cloth, as so many do. The cloth is good for a season only. After the vines havebecome large and heavy their weight will be sufficient to tear the cloth loose from the tacks that held it in place, especially after a heavy rain or in strong winds, and down will come the plant. It will be found impossible to put it back in place in anything like a satisfactory manner. For supporting large, stiff vines I make use of screw-hooks, which are easily inserted in wooden walls. Turn the hooks in until there is just enough room between their points and the wall to admit of slipping the vine in. Not one vine in fifty will work loose from the grip of the hooks.

Some vines are not adapted to this treatment. These I support by using strips of leather instead of cloth. The leather should be soaked in oil for twenty-four hours before using, to make it pliable and water-resisting. Do not use small tacks, as these do not have sufficient hold on the wood to make them dependable. Use nails at least an inch long, with good-sized heads.

Some persons object to the use of vines about the house, especially if it is of wood, claiming that they retain moisture to such an extent as to soon injure the walls. I have convinced myself that facts are directly contrary to this theory. The overlapping leaves act as shingles—shedding rain and preventingit from getting to the walls against which the vines are trained.

Try to interest the children in the making of a fern-garden and a collection of native plants. A little encouragement at the beginning will do this, and after the project is well under way it will not need encouraging, for the little folks will be so fascinated by it that there will be little likelihood of their abandoning the undertaking. Take half a dozen or more children to the woods with you, with baskets in which to bring home their specimens. Show them how to take up the plants in such a manner that a considerable amount of soil will adhere to their roots. Help them pack them snugly into the baskets to prevent their being shaken about in transit, thereby losing the soil taken up with them. If the day happens to be a warm and sunny one, have them sprinkle the plants and pack some wet moss about them to keep them as fresh as possible until they can be planted in the home garden. Discourage them from taking large plants in preference to small ones, as they will most likely be eager to do. Explain that the small ones stand the best chance of living, and that nothing is gained by choosing large ones, because these will be sure to lose their foliage, and that, even ifthey live, which nine out of ten will not, they will receive such a check by removal that the small plants will soon get the start of them.

It will greatly add to the pleasure of plant-collecting if you make a kind of picnic excursion of it. Take along something good to eat, and spend half a day in the woods, if possible. You will enjoy it as much as the children will. Don't dig your plants, however, until you are about ready to start for home, for it is quite important that they should be planted as soon as possible after being taken up. When they are set out, water them well and shade them for several days.

Give all plants taken from shady places a location as nearly like that from which they were taken as possible. A fern that grew in shade will be pretty sure to die if planted in a place fully exposed to the sun.

It helps matters very much if you can have a load of woods earth drawn to the home garden to plant these children of the forest in. They do not take kindly to loam, after having been grown in loose, porous soil, though many of them are strong enough to adapt themselves to ordinary garden conditions.

I know of many neighborhoods in which clubs for collecting native plants have beenformed, and the children who are in these clubs have become intensely interested in their gardens of native plants. This is as it should be, for we have many beautiful wild flowers that are better worth growing than foreign kinds for which large prices are asked. Pride in our home plants ought to be encouraged, and there is no better way of doing this than by interesting the boys and girls in the making of a wild garden.

The tuberose is a plant which everybody admires, but which is seldom seen in amateur gardeners' collections. I think the general impression is that it is not an easy plant to grow. Such is not the case, however. It can be grown successfully by any one who is willing to give it a little attention. Tubers should be obtained in March or April. They should be planted in pots containing sandy garden loam into which a liberal amount of good fertilizer has been thoroughly worked. If the tubers are small, two or three can be put into each seven-inch pot used. Before planting them the mass of dried roots which will generally be found adhering to the base of the tuber should be cut away with a thin, sharp-bladed knife. If this is not done, these roots often decay and the diseased condition will be communicated to the tuberand cause it to die, or, if death does not result, to become so unhealthy that it will fail to bloom.

The plants can be turned out of their pots when the weather becomes warm, and grown on in the garden through the summer, but I would not advise this, for it will be necessary to lift and pot them before frosty nights come, as they are very tender, and a little disturbance of their roots at this time may cause their buds to blast. I would urge keeping them in pots throughout the season, as, if this is done, you always have them under control. The flowers of the tuberose are ivory-white in color. They are of thick, waxen texture, and have that heavy, rich fragrance that characterizes the magnolia and the cape jasmine of the South. They are borne in a spike at the extremity of tall stalks, thus being very effective for cutting. Because of their thick texture they last for a long time after cutting. Plants in pots remain in bloom for a month or six weeks. Every lover of deliciously fragrant flowers will do well to grow at least half a dozen of them to do duty in the window-garden in fall.

A second crop of flowers need not be expected from a tuber that has borne one crop. In order to make sure of bloom it will benecessary to purchase fresh tubers each spring.

The abutilon is an old favorite among house plants, and its popularity is well deserved. It is of as easy culture as a geranium. Give it a good soil—preferably loam—drain its pot well, keep the soil evenly moist but never wet, and that is about all the care it will require. It may be necessary to prune it now and then during its early stages of growth in order to secure symmetrical shape, but this is easily done by pinching off the ends of such branches as seem inclined to get the start of others, and keeping them from making more growth until the others have caught up with them. Pinching back branches that do not develop side shoots will generally result in their branching freely. In this way you secure a bushy, compact plant. In order to make a little tree of the abutilon—and it is most satisfactory when grown in that manner—train it to one straight stalk until it reaches the height where you want the head to form. Allow no side branches to grow during this period of the plant's development. When three or four feet tall, nip off the top and keep it nipped off until as many branches as you think necessary have started at the top of the stalk. Allow none to growbelow. By persevering in this treatment you will succeed in getting a number of branches with which to form a treelike head.

There are several varieties of abutilon. Some have orange flowers, some red, some yellow, some pink, and some pure white. These flowers are bell-shaped and pendent. One name for the plant is the Chinese bell-flower because of its bell-like blossoms. Another is flowering maple, because of the resemblance in shape of its foliage to our native maple. There are two or three varieties with beautifully variegated foliage in which green and white and yellow are about equally distributed. I am always glad to speak a good word for this plant because of its beauty, its ease of culture, its constancy of bloom, and the fact that it is seldom attacked by insects.

Another most deserving old plant is the rose geranium. This used to be found in nearly all collections of house plants. It is as easily grown as the flowering geranium. Its foliage is very pleasing, being as finely cut as some varieties of fern. It is delightfully fragrant. A leaf or two will be found a most desirable addition to a buttonhole or corsage bouquet. It can be grown in tree form by giving it the pinching-back treatment advisedfor the abutilon, or it can be grown as a bush by beginning the pinching process when it is only three or four inches high, thus obliging it to throw out several stalks near the base of the plant.

Old plants of oleander may easily be renewed when they have become so large as to be unwieldy, or have outgrown the space that can be given up to them. Cut awayallthe branches to within four or five inches of the main stalk, leaving nothing but a mass of stubs. In a very short time new branches will be sent out. There will be so many of them that it will be necessary to remove the larger share of them. If this pruning is done in early spring, when the plant is brought from cold storage, the new growth ought to bear a crop of flowers in late summer. The following season the plant should be literally covered with bloom during the greater part of summer, these blossoms being as large and fine in all respects as those borne by the plant when young. I know of no plant that is more tractable than this one, and certainly we have few that are more beautiful. Large specimens are magnificent for porch and veranda decoration in summer. In December they should go into the cellar, to remain there until March.

Plants with variegated foliage are becoming more in demand yearly. Japanese maize, with long leaves striped with white and cream, is very effective when grown in a mass in the center of a bed. The Japanese hop, with foliage heavily marbled with creamy white, is quite as attractive without flowers as many of our flowering vines are. Ricinus, with enormous foliage of a lustrous coppery bronze, will be found far more "tropical" in effect then the cannas and caladiums we see so much of nowadays. The leaves of this plant often measure a yard across. If you want it to be most effective, plant it in some exposed place where it will have plenty of room to spread its branches.

From what I have said in a preceding chapter it will be readily understood that I am not an admirer of "carpet-bedding" except where plants with small, richly colored foliage are made use of. These can be pruned in such a manner as to keep each color inside its proper limit, but flowering plants will straggle across the lines assigned them, and all clearness of outline in the "pattern" will soon be lost. But when plants are located with a view to securing color contrast, very fine effects can be obtained from them. A circular bed filled withpink, white, and pale-yellowphlox drummondiiin rows of each color will be found pleasing, and it has the merit of being easily made.

If a round bed has scarlet salvia for its center, surrounded with yellow calliopsis, or California poppy, it will afford a mass of most intense color that will produce a most brilliant effect. A bed of pink flowering geraniums—pink, mind you, not scarlet or any shade of red—bordered with lavender ageratum, will be found extremely attractive if care is taken to cut away all trusses of bloom from the geraniums as soon as they have begun to fade. If this is not done the bed will have a draggled, slovenly effect.

Scarlet salvia combined with euphorbia, better known as "snow-on-the-mountain," will be found very effective, the white and green of the euphorbia bringing out the scarlet of the salvia most vividly, and affording such a strong contrast that a bed of these two plants will always challenge admiration.

The euphorbia will be found a very useful plant for almost any place in beds or borders where something seems needed to relieve the prevailing color. It deserves more attention than it gets.

The impression seems to prevail that many plants ought to retain their old leaves indefinitely. They will not do this, however. Leaves ripen after a time, and the plant will shed them, as all deciduous plants shed theirs in fall. Therefore if you find the lower leaves on your ficus turning, yellow and dropping, don't be frightened. The plant is simply going through one of the processes of nature.

But if a good many of the leaves fall all at once it will be well to look for some other explanation of the plant's action. The loss of foliage may come from lack of moisture in the soil, or the roots of the plant may be pot-bound. Examination will show if either is the case. If the soil is found to be dry, more water should be given. If the pot is filled with roots, repot the plant, giving it more root room. The owners of plants should take all these things into consideration before coming to any conclusion as to what the cause of trouble is. Unless they do so there will have to be "guesswork" relative to it, and that is never safe or satisfactory. Trouble may come from overwatering, or from lack of good drainage, or a soil deficient in nutrition. You see, it is necessary to study these matters from several angles, so to speak,as the trouble complained of may have its origin in any one of the conditions mentioned, and not much can be done to remedy matters until one has made an examination that brings to light the facts in the case. These known, it will be a comparatively easy matter to determine the treatment required, for the conditions that are found to exist will, to a great extent, indicate in almost every instance the remedy needed.

Some good vines for window-box culture are:

Madeira vine.—Heart-shaped foliage of a rich, glossy green. Very rapid grower.

Tradescantia.—Green, green striped with white, and olive striped with Indian red. Quick grower.

Vinca Harrisonii.—Dark-green foliage, edged with yellow.

Senecio.—More commonly known as German ivy. Pretty, ivy-shaped foliage of a clear, bright green. Very rapid grower. Needs frequent pinching back to make it branch freely.

Glechoma.—Green, variegated with bright yellow.

Othonna.—Better known as "pickle-plant" because of its cylindrical foliage, which resemblesa miniature cucumber. Has pretty yellow flowers.

Saxifraga.—Leaves of graying olive sprinkled with white.

Ivy-leaved geraniums.—There are many varieties, some with pink, some with white, and others with red flowers. These are excellent where flowering plants of drooping habit are desired. A box edged with these plants, especially the pink variety, with white Marguerites—better known as Paris daisies—in the center, will be found especially pleasing.

In window-boxes having a northern exposure such plants as Boston and Whitman fern,asparagus plumosus,asparagus Sprengerii, and any of the fibrous-rooted begonias will be found very effective. These plants can be turned out of their pots and planted in the earth in the box, or the pots in which they grow can be sunk in the soil. This is in several respects the best way, as in fall, when the window-box has to be discontinued, the plants will not have to be repotted.

Petunias are excellent plants for window-box culture. They can be made to grow in upright form by giving them a little support, or they can be allowed to droop over the sidesof the box. A combination of purple and white varieties will be found pleasing. This plant comes into bloom early in the season, when grown from seed, and it continues to bloom until cold weather comes.