There are two objects for which plants are kept over.
Plants are housed for the sake of their verdure and bloom during the winter; or, simply to protect them from the frosts. Our first criticism is, that these two separate objects are, to a great extent, improperly united. Tables and window-stands are crowded with plants which ought to be in the cellar or in a pit. Plants which have bloomed through the summer will rest during the winter. To remove them from the heat and dust of the parlor—to place them in a dry, light, warm cellar, will certainly conduce to their entire rest, and the parlor will lose no grace by the removal of ragged stems, falling leaves, and flowerless branches. When a large quantity of plants are to be protected, and cellar room is wanting, a pit may be prepared with little expense. Dig a place eight or ten feet square, in a dry exposure. The depth may be from five to six feet. Let the surface of this chamber be curbed about with a plank frame, the top of which should slope to the south at an inclination of about three inches to the foot. This may be covered with plank except in the middle, where two sash may be placed. The outside of the plank may be banked up with earth, and if light brush or haulm be placed upon the top, in severe weather, it will be all the better. The inside may be provided with shelves on every side for the pots, and thus hundreds of plants may be effectually protected. During severe freezing weather the sash should be covered with mats, old carpet, straw or anything of the
kind; and in very cold weather this should not be removed during the daytime: for if the plants have been touched with frost, the admission of light will destroy or maim them, whereas, if kept in darkness, they will suffer little or no injury. Several families may unite in the expense of forming a cold-pit and thus fill it with plants at a small expense and very little inconvenience to each. Very little if any water should be given to plants thus at rest.
Even where plants are wanted to bloom in the parlor late in the winter, it is often better to let them spend the fore-part of the winter in the cellar or pit.
Our second criticism respects the character of winter collections.
The most noticeable error is the strange crowd of plants often huddled together, as if the excellence of a collection consisted in the number of things brought together. Everything that the florist sees in other collections has been procured, as if it would be an unpardonable negligence not to have what others have. Hence we sometimes see scores of plants, very different in their habits, requiring widely different conditions of growth, reduced to one regimen, viz. a place near the window, so much water a day, and one turning round. This summary procedure, of course, soon results in a vegetable Falstaff’s regiment; some plants being long, sprawling, gangling, some dormant and dumpy; some shedding their leaves and going to rest with unripe wood, some mildewed, a few faintly struggling to show here and there a bewildered blossom. In such a collection the eye is pained by the entire want of sympathy arising from jumbling together the most dissimilar kinds; from the want of robust health, and from the entire disappearance of that vivid freshness and sprightliness of growth, compact while it is rapid, which gives a charm to well managed plants.
All plants which are not growing, or for whose growth your parlors are not suitable, should be put into the cellar
and should there be allowed to stand over in a state of rest. According to your accommodations, select a few vigorous, symmetrical, hearty, healthy plants for the window. One plant well tended, will afford you more pleasure than twenty, half-nurtured.
In our dwellings, one has to make his way between two extremes in the best manner that he can. Without a stove our thin-walled houses are cold as an ice-house, and a frosty night sends sad dismay among our favorites. Then, on the other hand, if we have a stove, the air is apt to be parched, and unwholesome, fit for salamanders, fat and torpid cats and dozing grandmothers. There is not much choice between an ice-house and an oven. There can be no such thing as floral health without fresh air and enough of it. This must be procured by frequent ventilation.