The window for plants should have a southern, southeastern, or eastern exposure. Plants need all the light they can get in the winter, especially those that are expected to bloom. The window should be tight-fitting. Shutters and a curtain will be an advantage in cold weather.
Plants like a certain uniformity in conditions. It is very trying on them, and often fatal to success, to have them snug and warm one night and pinched in a temperature only a few degrees above freezing the next. Some plants will live in spite of it, but they cannot be expected to prosper. Those whose rooms are heated with steam, hot water, or hot air will have to guard against keeping rooms too warm fully as much as keeping them too cool. Rooms in brick dwellings that have been warm all day, if shut up and made snug in the evening, will often keep warm over night without heat except in the coldest weather. Rooms in frame dwellings exposed on all sides soon cool down.
It is difficult to grow plants in rooms lighted by gas. Most living-rooms have air too dry for plants. In such cases the bow-window may be set off from the room by glass doors; one then has a miniature conservatory. A pan of water on the stove or on the register and damp moss among the pots, will help to afford plants the necessary humidity.
The foliage will need cleansing from time to time to free it from dust. A bath tub provided with a ready outlet for the water is an excellent place for this purpose. The plants may be turned on their sides and supported on a small box above the bottom of the tub. Then they may be freely syringed without danger of making the soil too wet. It is usually advisable not to wet the flowers, however, especially the white waxen kinds, like hyacinths. The foliage of rex begonias should be cleansed with a piece of dry or only slightly moist cotton. But if the leaves can be quickly dried off by placing them in the open air on mild days, or moderately near the stove, the foliage may be syringed.
Some persons attach the box to the window, or support it on brackets attached below the window-sill; but a preferable arrangement is to support the box on a low and light stand of suitable height provided with rollers. It may then be drawn back from the window, turned around from time to time to give the plants light on all sides, or turned with the attractive side in as may be desired.
Often the plants are set directly in the soil; but if they are kept in pots they may be rearranged, and changed about to give those which need it more light. Larger plants that are to stand on shelves or brackets may be in porous earthenware pots; but the smaller ones that are to fill the window-box may be placed in heavy paper pots. The sides of these are flexible, and the plants in them therefore may be crowded close together with great economy in space. When pots are spaced, damp sphagnum or other moss among them will hold them in place, keep the soil from drying out too rapidly, and at the same time give off moisture, so grateful to the foliage.
In addition to the stand, or box, a bracket for one or more pots on either side of the window, about one-third or half-way up, will be desirable. The bracket should turn on a basal hinge or pivot, to admit of swinging it forward or backward. These bracket plants usually suffer for moisture, and are rather difficult to manage.
Florists now usually grow plants suitable for window-gardens and winter flowering, and any intelligent florist, if asked, will take pleasure in making out a suitable collection. The plants should be ordered early in the fall; the florist will then not be so crowded for time and can give the matter better attention.
Most of the plants suitable for the winter window-garden belong to the groups that florists grow in their medium and cool houses. The former are given a night temperature of about 60°, the latter about 50°. In each case the temperature is 10 to 15° higher for the daytime. Five degrees of variation below these temperatures will be allowable without any injurious effects; even more may be borne, but not without more or less check to the plants. In bright, sunny weather the day temperature may be higher than in cloudy and dark weather.
Plants for an average night temperature of 60° (trade names).