Manual of Gardening

exposed position will dry out readily during summer weather, unless the
position is a shaded one. In the latter case provision for good drainage
is always advisable.

Since there is more or less cramping of roots, it will be necessary to
make the soil richer than would be required were the plants to grow in
the garden. The most desirable soil is one that does not pack hard like
clay, nor contract much when dry, but remains porous and springy. Such a
soil is found in the potting earth used by florists, and it may be
obtained from them at 50 cents to $1 a barrel. Often the nature of the
soil will be such as to make it desirable to have at hand a barrel of

sharp sand for mixing with it, to make it more porous and prevent
baking. A good filling for a deep box is a layer of clinkers or other
drainage in the bottom, a layer of pasture sod, a layer of old cow
manure, and fill with fertile garden earth.

Some window-gardeners pot the plants and then set them in the
window-box, filling the spaces between the pots with moist moss. Others
plant them directly in the earth. The former method, as a general rule,
is to be preferred in the winter window-garden; the latter in
the summer.

The plants most valuable for outside boxes are those of drooping habit,
such as lobelias, tropeolums, othonna, Kenilworth ivy, verbena (Fig.
269), sweet alyssum, and petunia. Such plants may occupy the front row,
while back of them may be the erect-growing plants, as geraniums,
heliotropes, begonias (Plate XX).

For shady situations the main dependence is on plants of graceful form
or handsome foliage; while for the sunny window the selection may be of
blooming plants. Of the plants mentioned below for these two positions,

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