Gardening Indoors and Under Glass / A Practical Guide to the Planting, Care and Propagation of House Plants, and to the Construction and Management of Hotbed, Coldframe and Small Greenhouse

by F. F. Rockwell

As before, water only when necessary, i.e., when the surface of the soil begins to look whitish and dry. Then water thoroughly. Until by practice you know just what they need, knock a few out of the pots, say fifteen minutes after watering, and see if the ball of earth has been wet through to the bottom; if not, you are not doing the job thoroughly. If the pots do not dry out between waterings, but stay muddy and heavy, either your soil is not right or you have used pots too large for your plants.

REPOTTING

In the course of a week or two, if a plant is knocked out, the small white roots may be seen coming through the ball of earth and beginning to curl around the outside of it. The time for repotting the young plants will have been reached when these roots have made a thick network around the ball of earth, but before they become brown and woody; that is, while they are still white and succulent—"working roots," as the florists term them.

[Illustration: Potted cuttings ready for shifting to a larger pot. From left to right, ivy geranium, snapdragon, geranium and dusty miller]

[Illustration: Some plants, like Rex begonia, will strike root from their leaves if perforated with a knife into damp sand]

[Illustration: In all potted plants an important detail is the placing of rough drainage material, such as broken pieces of pot, charcoal, ashes, etc., at the bottom, to prevent moisture from settling in the soil and souring it]

The shift, as a general rule, should be to a pot only one size larger, that is, from a three to a four, or a four to a five.

Remove the plant from the old pot by holding the stem of the plant between the index and middle finger of the left hand, and with the right inverting the pot and rapping the edge of the rim sharply against the edge of the bench or table.

Before putting the plant into the new pot, remove the top half inch of soil and gently loosen up the lower half of the ball of roots, if it is firmly matted.

Put soil in the bottom of the pot to such a depth that when the ball of roots is covered with half an inch or so of new soil, the surface thereof will still be about half an inch below the rim of the pot. Hold the plant in place with the left hand, and with the right fill in around it, making the soil firm as before. Water and care is the same as after the first potting.