Evening star., 1900-07-07
How to Secure a Vigorous Growth the
Year Around.
WATER Is THE CHIEF NEED INDOORS
Little Attention Every Day Repays
Trouble.
OLD-TIME PRIM BOUQUETS

Written for The Evening Star.
AS one walks or drives about our beauti-
full, shady streets to plant lover constant
ly comes the idea of promoting a Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to House
Plants. For a month past, since the poor,
gas-poisoned, sickly, yellow-leaved speci-
mems first began to appear on steps and
grass plots. 1 have felt as I would to see
miserable, half-starved children choking
with thirst set out in front of houses to
see what nature would do for them OF
course there are exceptions, and often one
sees such vigorous growth come forth
after winters struggle with the adverse
conditions of house growth as to well
justify an owners pride. There are a
few principal needs of plants in the
house, and only great neglect can account
for yellow-leaved palms. and especially UNI
brella palms, stunted in growth, and the
dried edges of other large-leaved speci-
mems. The great lack in care that is most
apparent when all these survivors come
to the public gaze is water. In the dry,
close air Of the houses, many of them
warmed with hot-air furnaces, a plant will
live almost entirely on water, and it should
be given regularly and plentifully every
morning. Some require more than Others
and a little observation will soon guide the
judgment in applying it.
1t must be an intelligent servant who can
be trusted with children, and the same
holds good with plants indoors. For my
self, only one emergency causes me to let
any one else care for them, and l water
them as regularly as I eat my breakfast.
going to this duty of five minutes usually
directly from the table. Palms should not
be set too much In the sun, neither should
ferns or the pretty dwarf evergreens now
so fashionable; rubber tree. however, will
IN md yxrt1l H.
ways provided that the latter are set in an
outer pot of water. There is absolutely no
other way for one to thrive well. and come
to Its full development, indoors or out and
my largest one, measuring in circumference
three yards and nine inches. and thirty-two
inches high, justities the assertion. They do
best in large deep pot, with the outer jar
kept filled to the brrr, and in these con-
dittons will multiply and fill any jar given
them.
To Start New Plants
An interesting feature of their growth is
that the small shorts which come out at
the tips Of the stalks, above the spreading
umbrella which names the plant, may be
picked off and planted in pct of earth, set
into the inevitable outer Jar of water, and
they will root in a very short time and in
a year make a large hourishing growth.
From one large plant l set out another last
summer from the tips, which is now eight
cen inches high and two yards around. and
from the tips Of the two, l have recently
planted five good-siZed pots full. which will
be ornamental when it Is time to bring them
indoors. To make the decorated jars hold
water for these special plants, l have the
hole In the bottom stopped with plaster of
paris which quickly hardens and thus can
be kept filled around the inner pot. In sum-
mer fill the jars twice day, 1t is drawn
up to the plant roots eagerly. and OF
course evaporates in the hot air also.
simply never see these plants anywhere
else getting the amount of water they re-
quire, and it gives pang of pity to see
them, as one so often does, drying In the
summer heat, with few new leaves push
ing up but very few, and the old ones all
more or less yeiiow-tipped, and this pity
leads me to make this plea that they should
have these proper conditions of growth. No
amount of water poured onto the roots will
nourish them like water drawn up through
the soil. If every owner of an umbrella