CHAPTER I.. Divisions of the Work.--Part I. the Garden in the Room.--Part Ii.

Divisions of the Work.--Part I. The Garden in the Room.--Part II. The Garden at the Window.--Watering.--Temperature of the Water for Watering.--Effect of Cold Water upon Plants cultivated in a Room.--Warmth.--Advantages of the Heat being equal Night and Day.--Light.--Ventilation.--Cleaning of Broad-leaved Plants.--Same of Narrow-leaved.

Divisions of the Work.

It is not always easy to cultivate ornamental plants in an inhabited room; but, far from complaining of this difficulty, we should, on the contrary, congratulate ourselves on it, for it is a great pleasure to do a difficult thing and succeed in it. To be successful in parlor gardening, nothing is requisite but care and patience: much of these is necessary, and so much the better--this sort of gardening belonging peculiarly to those who have a great deal of leisure. The extent to which parlor gardening can be carried on, the kinds and variety of plants that it may embrace, the times of the year in which we can occupy ourselves in it with the most pleasure and success,--all this varies according to the space we have, and the fitness of the situation for our experiments. We shall take into consideration all these things, as they present themselves in the natural course of ordinary life. That we may arrange our hints in some order, we will examine separately the garden in the room and the garden at the window--these being the two natural divisions of this treatise.

In Part I. separate chapters are devoted to the garden on the mantel-piece, the garden on the étagère, that on the flower-stand, and that in the portable greenhouse. The different methods of propagation--by seeds, by slips, and by grafts--are the subjects of so many separate chapters. They are the most delicate and the most amusing of the operations of parlor gardening. This Part will terminate by details on the parlor aquarium.

In Part II. gardening is considered under all the aspects that it can present--on the veranda, between the double windows, (which will be converted into a miniature conservatory,) and on the terrace, (which, even when it is not very large, can be made into a real garden,) where we can have flowers all the year round, in less number, doubtless, but as beautiful and as various as in a well-kept parterre.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS.

Watering.

In order to cultivate ornamental plants with success in a room, we must reflect that they have their wants and their enemies; and we must satisfy the one and protect them from the other. Plants confined within our dwellings have need of earth suited to their temperaments; and it is easy to procure it. They require also watering; some rarely and sparingly, others often and profusely, but always with water of the same temperature as that of the earth in which they are placed--this being a very important point, upon which most people who have flowers in pots in their chambers are perfectly ignorant. You ladies like a comfortable degree of warmth; so also do your plants; and nothing is more agreeable, and at the same time more healthy, than a good temperature within doors when the cold reigns without. Yet, mark what frequently happens: Some beautiful camellia is your delight. To judge by the profusion of buds with which it is loaded, it promises a splendid bloom in January. You have been enjoined not to fail to water it evening and morning, and this injunction you punctually fulfil. But in what way? You go to the dining room sideboard for the water pitcher--you find it empty--you have it replenished from the filter--the temperature of this water is almost icy--you pour it upon the roots of your camellia. Suppose some one was to pour icy water upon your feet--the shock would make you cry out. Your camellia says nothing, but it does not suffer less. Its sap, that was in full activity, slackens--stops; and, that it may begin to flow again, all the buds drop, one after another--not a single one can bloom. You are astonished at this, and say, “It is not my fault.” In Sir Walter Scott’s “Pirate,” the gardener of the Shetland Isles is surprised that his apple trees have frozen. He says, as you would say, “It is not my fault; I watered them all the winter--with warm water.” It is the same error reversed. Remember, then, that in watering any plant whatever, cultivated in a pot in a room, the first requisite is, that the water you use be of the same temperature with the earth in which the plant grows.

If you have occasion to visit a greenhouse, and it should happen that you pay a little attention to the manner in which it is managed, you will remark that it always contains a reservoir of water intended to water the plants with. This water, from the circumstance alone of its remaining in the greenhouse, takes the same temperature with it before it is used. This is an example that must be followed. In the evening, place in the chamber a vessel containing the quantity of water necessary to water the plants next morning; this water and the earth of the pots will be of the same temperature.

Warming.

As to heat, that is not what is most important for the health of your plants; the greater number of those which you can have in cold weather will always be warm enough in your house, provided it does not freeze there. The essential point is, that they should not pass by sudden alternations from heat to cold, and that there should be as little difference as possible between the temperature of night and day. In this respect it is not difficult to give them satisfaction, while at the same time you are making yourself comfortable.

Light.

But there is another element of which they all have as much need as of heat; that is light. Do not be afraid of inconveniencing yourself a little, of spoiling the symmetrical arrangement of your furniture, in order that your flower-stand may receive as much light as possible, and be placed as near to where it comes in as the gardeners by profession say ought to be done, and as they do in their greenhouses. If you travel in Belgium, in Holland, in the north of Germany, a country where parlor gardening is very much in repute, you will see that all who have flowers in their rooms (and every body has) place them conspicuously upon étagères painted green, which gives to entire streets the appearance of a floral exhibition. There is a street in Brussels, where, if you wish to see a continual display of gardening and botany, you have nothing to do but to walk along and look at the windows on each side. And you might, in your walk, get some useful hints with regard to the kinds of ornamental plants you wish to cultivate in your parlor.

Ventilation.

After water, heat, and light, the continual renewal of air for your plants is most necessary. If your room is warmed by a good open fireplace, which draws well and gives you a clear fire without smoke, so much the better; the draught of the chimney renews sufficiently the air of the apartment: both your own health and that of the plants must be the better for this. Do not put your plants in a room in which the chimney smokes; or in a place warmed by a stove or furnace; they will have too little air in this latter case. You will say, that, in the greenhouses and conservatories it is by various systems of warming-pipes that a proper temperature is kept up; and that the plants do well. This is true; but alongside of the heat pipes are pipes for ventilation, bringing continually into the greenhouse the air from without, which is warmed by its contact with the heat pipes before it mixes with the interior air; and the freshness of this interior air is thereby maintained. Not so in a chamber warmed by a stove.

Cleaning.

Plants in a room have really but one enemy--the dust necessarily raised by sweeping. Those plants, as the camellias, kalmias, and rhododendrons, which have leaves both large and thick enough for the process, ought to be wiped at least twice a week with a moistened sponge. As to those whose leaves are too small to admit of this sort of cleaning, as the ericas (heaths) and the epacris, you must proceed in the following manner: Fill a watering pot, the rose of which has very fine holes, with water of a proper temperature; incline each pot containing a plant to be cleaned separately over the sink, and then with the watering pot, turning the plant round all the time in every direction, pour a fine shower, which will have all the effect of a real rain. By this means you avoid wetting the earth of the pots to excess, and the plants will be perfectly freed from dust.

These general attentions are applicable to all plants that can be cultivated in doors.