Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Practical guides on soil, composting, watering, seeds, pests and the everyday skills that make a garden thrive.
While many plants are best started from seed, as described in the preceding chapter, there are many which cannot be so reproduced; especially named varieties which will not come true from seeds, but r...
One of the ways of getting a supply of plants for the house is to start them from seed. With a number of varieties, better specimens may be obtained by this method than by any other. Most of the annua...
Liberal Use of Limestone. Land never does its best when skimped in any way. As we raise the percentage of carbonate of lime in land that naturally is deficient, we give increasing ability to such land...
If weeds are kept down through the early part of the season, there will not be a great deal of weeding to do in midsummer. Still, we cannot afford to take it for granted that they require no attention...
The Roses best adapted for in-door culture belong to the class known as Tea Roses; these are tender, of a bushy growth, and if properly treated, will bloom the year round; the flowers have a strong te...
Next in importance to light, is the matter of temperature. The ordinary house plants, to be kept in health, require a temperature of sixty-five to seventy-five degrees during the day and fifty to fift...
The Litmus Paper Test. A method of testing soils for acidity, which has been in use for many years, is the simple litmus paper method. Because of its simplicity and fair degree of accuracy, the litmus...
A great deal is written about the flower-garden that fronts the street, or is so located that it will attract the passer-by, but it is seldom that we see any mention made of the garden in the back-yar...
Although the number of palms cultivated is very large, very few indeed--only about a dozen--will give satisfactory results in the house. The fact that a palm will live--or rather, takes a very long ti...