lily.

Some climbers are cobaea, honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, English ivy,
Boston ivy, cypress vine, hyacinth bean, climbing nasturtiums, and
roses.

To make your plants do best, cultivate them carefully. Allow no weeds to
grow among them and do not let the surface of the soil dry into a hard
crust. Beware, however, of stirring the soil too deep. Loosening the
soil about the roots interrupts the feeding of the plant and does harm.
Climbing plants may be trained to advantage on low woven-wire fences.
These are especially serviceable for sweet peas and climbing
nasturtiums. Do not let the plants go to seed, since seeding is a heavy
drain on nourishment. Moreover, the plant has served its end when it
seeds and is ready then to stop blossoming. You should therefore pick
off the old flowers to prevent their developing seeds. This will cause
many plants which would otherwise soon stop blossoming to continue
bearing flowers for a longer period.

[Illustration: FIG. 108. A WINDOW-GARDEN]

=Window-Gardening.= Growing plants indoors in the window possesses many
of the attractions of outdoor flower-gardening, and is a means of
beautifying the room at very small expense. Especially do window-gardens
give delight during the barren winter time. They are a source of culture
and pleasure to thousands who cannot afford extended and expensive
ornamentation.

The window-garden may vary in size from an eggshell holding a minute
plant to boxes filling all the available space about the window. The
soil may be in pots for individual plants or groups of plants or in
boxes for collections of plants. You may raise your flowers inside of
the window on shelves or stands, or you may have a set of shelves built
outside of the window and inclosed in glazed sashes. The illustration on
page 119 gives an idea of such an external window-garden.

[Illustration: FIG. 109. AN INSIDE WINDOW BOX IN ITS FULL GLORY]

The soil must be rich and loose. The best contains some undecayed
organic matter such as leaf-mold or partly decayed sods and some sand.
Raise your plants from bulbs, cuttings, or seed, just as in outdoor
gardens. Some plants do better in cool rooms, others in a warmer
temperature.

[Illustration: FIG. 110. MAKING THE OUTSIDE OF A WINDOW BLOOM]

If the temperature ranges from 35 deg. to 70 deg., averaging about 55 deg., azaleas,
daisies, carnations, candytuft, alyssum, dusty miller, chrysanthemums,
cinerarias, camellias, daphnes, gera