The Savannah morning news., 1904-09-04
THE RETURN OF
THE GIRL FEMININE
She's the Family Hortcutuist and Her Flowers Bloom Like
Magic-Love and Sunshine the Only Witchcraft
BY MARTHA neutrality-suspicious..


If only love were always a root of
wisdom, or even knowledge. the most
part of house plants could not fail
to thrive. For one woman who says
of a plant, as the French woman did
of a baby, 'it furnishes" there are
a dozen at least who potter with green
things or growing ones, because of pure
love for them. Marjorie is an ideal
horticulturist in an appreciative family,
and her windows are at once the de-
light and despair of her friends, alike
in summer or winter, wherefore it
seems worth while to tell how
she makes and keeps them so.
Sunshine and soap and water, love
and liquid manure-they are positive
ly all the witchcraft I have used"
Marjorie said, laughing over a Boston
fern she had cherished for five years.
1t is a royal plant, a wavy mass of
lacy deep green fronds, filling all the
corners between two sunny windows.
Some of the fronds are five feet long,
others of the stout outstanding ones
are broader than the hand. They
spring from matted roots crowding a
ten-inch pot. The plant has been
shifted yearly, and old crowns have
broken out whenever they got as
high above the roots that the new
fronds from their tips lacked vigor
The Care of the Fern.
Further, the fern has had water ev-
cry day-enough to wet the pot thor
oughly, but not to stand in the saucer.
1t has been fortified every week, and
bathed head and ears, every fortnight.
For the bath, the pot is laid on its side
in the tub after covering the earth
surface and the pot edges with a clean
cloth. The water is little less than
tepid, and the fronds are we'll washed
in it with some good white soap AS
soon as they are clean the pot is set
upright, the soapsuds drained off, and
the whole plant we'll showered with
clear water
After it has drained, the cloth comes
off and the pot is scrubbed clean.
Dirty pots, Marjorie insists, smother
roots as dust and CRIME smother
leaves. She will not have jardinieres,
although she confesses herself strong
ly tempted by those made of open
work in wicker patterns that come in
every color under the sun, and can
be matched to the daintiest room. But
the common bullying, glaring, staring
atrocity has her worst word. Any self
respecting plant, she says, should re-
fuse to thrive in one. This wholly up
on aesthetic grounds, regardless of the
fact that jardinieres so often keep
stagnant water and bad air about the
roots, conditions almost certainly ia
tai.
Few Plants Like Wet Feet.
Only few plants love to have their
feet continually wet. The new aspara-
gus fern-asparagus sprengerii--is
one of them. To have long, thick
sprays of it, prodigal of blossom, and
later of coral red berries, the pot
should have a saucer generously Deep
and the saucer should be filled with
water every day, besides soaking the
earth in the pot. 1t should also have
frequent baths. All house plants, in
deed, not too big for the tub are the
better for them. The grants must
have, instead of the plunge, sponge
baths-first with white soapsuds, then
with clear water. Leaves are plant
lungs, and choke quickly indoors.
Marjorie has ferns galore-the new
ostrich plume, both sorts of aspara-
gus, a lace fern, fern balls, and a fern
dish, green and fiourishing all the year
around. She lets alone the supremely
lovely maidenhair fern, knowing it
will not live outside a green house,
except in a Wardian case, for which
she does not care. The fern dish has
the inner pot of red clay.
Every morning the ferns are taken
out, their roots sunk in a basin of
water their tops plentifully sprinkled,
then the whole thing set to drain be-
fore it goes back in the dish. The
| dish sits through daylight where it
gets moderate sunlight. Majorie, in
deed, SCOTS at the prevalent notion
that ferns fear the sun. They will live
in the shade. she says. She also ad-
mits there are SORTS wild and tame,
that sunlight scorches. But the most