Of the citrus fruits tangerines appear to give the most attractive plants, for the leaves are a dark, shining green rather than pale and dull.

All tend to get a little leggy unless they get good light and although it is sometimes possible to get a good, bushy plant by pinching out the growing tip, some plants seem to resent this and show the fact by dropping leaves or even by dying.

Avocado stones can be planted in soil in the usual manner, but they will also grow just as well if they are grown like a hyacinth bulb, suspended with just the base touching the water. Always plant or grow with the more pointed end facing upwards. The stone will gradually split down the center and the growing shoot will appear from this point.

So if I am asked, ‘ Can I grow this?’ my answer based on cautious experience must always be, ‘Try it and see.’

Slice off the top, as I have said, with just a very thin layer of the fruit. Allow this to dry out slightly, perhaps for a clay or so, and then place this firmly on a bed of moist, clean sand in a seed pan. This sand must always be kept well moistened but never so wet that water shows at the side if it is tilted.

It is quite remarkable when you think about it, that it is possible to buy a growing plant and keep it in good health for many months without doing any more than give it regular supplies of water.

It is unlikely that the keen plant lover will maintain all plants in automatic watering containers, so occasions will probably arise when some emergency arrangements will have to be made to water the plants during absence on holiday, in hospital or on business.

There are several means by which this can be done. For small plants it is possible to water the pot thoroughly and then envelop the entire plant, including pot, in a plastic sleeve. This is sealed at the top after blowing in it to extend the sides like a balloon to keep them from pressing on the foliage.

When we talk about soils for pot plants we should more properly use the term composts, compositions composed of various constituents, of which soil is probably the most important. For all soil was once rock. Rain, frost, sun, subterranean disturbance, bacteria, animal products and even animals and plants themselves have over the centuries gradually broken clown the surface rock to form soil. These rock particles can vary in size from stones and pebbles to a very fine substance almost like powder which is so fine that under the influence of water it binds together like glue and forms clay.

Generally speaking it is better to leave the propagation of the trees to expert nurserymen who have all the knowledge and all the facilities for doing so. Some people would go so far as to say that it pays to leave the propagation of soft fruits to the experts also.

I am often asked to name a large beautifully coloured apple, and having racked his brain for a few minutes and admitted defeat he discovers that it isn’t a known variety at all, but a seedling raised in somebody’s garden!

If trees are raised in this way the variety, of course, is a new one. The pip from a Cox’s Orange Pippin apple may have as its male parent a James Grieve, and the resultant fruit tree would be part Cox and part James Grieve. If all the seeds from that apple are sown there may not be two trees alike, or even two trees which bear similar sized, coloured or flavoured fruits.

It doesn’t take long for these to spread to your plants by means of aphides or other sucking insects. Some growers, like L. H. Howard, of Tolleshunt Major, Essex, are compost growers of strawberry plants.

There are many different variations and combinations that you can buy for your indoor garden. There are three important approaches you need to keep in mind when arranging your house plants:

1.) Separate pots that can be set up and moved around when needed.

2.) Tray or box arrangements can house a number of different types of plants that can be grown together.

3.) Terrariums can be smaller or the bottle variety and are easily mobile

For the novice, the easiest way to arrange plants are in separate pots. Each plant can be enjoyed and receive individual attention. The needs of the plant have to be taken into consideration and this increases its growing potential. The possibilities for arranging are endless. There are several different types of plant holders and shelf arrangements in stores, these are designed to assist you in arranging your indoor garden to its fullest potential.

You need to begin your project with a simple plan, go for individual pots instead of trying the more difficult window-box or pan arrangement. The smaller you keep your initial plan, the cheaper and safer it will be, and in the long run will provide you with the most satisfying results.

The title for this chapter might be better phrased as ‘ All about succulents, including cacti ‘, for with one or two insignificant exceptions all cacti are succulents, although by no means are all succulents cacti. This is, in fact, typical of the world of succulents, easy and simple enough on the surface but technically and botanically abounding with difficulties, exceptions to the rule, problems of nomenclature and private theories from the experts.

However, cacti are such fascinating plants even without their flowers and so easy to grow and keep that they are well worth while. They are ideal plants for the smaller home and the town flat, for as a rule they take up little space and make little demand on time or attention. Some can grow very large indeed, but the way we grow them and the facilities we offer tend generally to keep them small, slow growing and convenient.

The main oddity about cacti is that they have no leaves. They appear to consist entirely of fleshy stems of various shapes, usually covered or dotted with regular series of spikes or hairs.

If we continue to use commercial greenhouses as a guide to our own practices in growing plants in our own homes we shall find that although facilities always exist for the provision of good ventilation, the houses in which plants are grown are always suffused with a humid atmosphere, sometimes so humid as to be uncomfortable to humans.

All plants tend to turn towards the light and face out of a window, thus disconcertingly turning their backs to their hosts in the home. The way to prevent this is to turn the plants a quarter turn each clay so that the growth is even.

Fortunately plants are much more sensitive to degrees of humidity than are humans, so it is possible to provide our plants with the slightly moister air that they prefer without ourselves noticing any difference. In fact by adding artificial humidity to the normally too dry air of a centrally heated home we shall not only benefit our plants, but our furniture and fittings and even our own health and our skins.

When we think of home, we think of comfort, warmth, familiarity, safety, friendliness and similar satisfying attributes. Whether our home is a mansion or a cottage, a bed sitting room or an apartment, we think of it as a unit and not as a conglomerate made up of doors and walls and windows, carpets and furnishings.

It is also possible to provide special conditions for special plants, by creating a micro climate for a single plant or even group of plants, and not affecting the total atmosphere of our home.

Only when we begin to analyze, feature by feature, we discover the separate qualities of the separate parts that go to make up the whole. If you take the simple example of doors, you’ll find that they can differ widely. An exterior door can face any aspect and be subjected to several different kinds of weather.

Our windows normally face one particular point of the compass, so we can say that south facing windows admit the greatest quantity of light. Windows on the west provide slightly less light in quantity, but the intensity of this light is usually good. East windows allow good light in the mornings but less for the remainder of the day. And finally north facing windows give less light than any of the others but have the advantage of giving this light more or less steadily throughout the day.

Setting out to work on an organic veggie and herb garden is quite an enterprise, but can be one of the most satisfying ways to go green that there is. The definition of organic is grown without the use of pesticides or other chemicals, but naturally.

If you already eat some organic herbs and vegetables, you will surely appreciate the better taste, the health benefits and also the lack of harmful residual substances. Imagine how great it would be if you had an organic garden that would furnish you wit a plentiful supply!

Unless you have no space to spare at all, one of the first steps to an organic garden is to set up a composting box, which will allow you to fertilize your herbs and vegetables, while also getting rid of kitchen waste. Even if you live in a flat you can compost, as it’s an odorless procedure if done right.

Besides eliminating the need for fertilizer, compost retains moisture and therefore allows you to use less water on your organic garden. You can put all kind of kitchen refuse and garden cuttings on your compost heap, just make sure to avoid big quantities of meat or fish, and don’t add human or pet dung! These are too acidic and also the wrong kind of bacteria.

This fruit is propagated by what is called the tip method. About the third week of August choose one or two strong young canes and bury the tip 4 inches deep in the soil at some convenient point near the plant without severing it in any way. The result will be that this tip will send out vigorous roots while drawing a certain amount of reinforcement from the main plant. In three or four weeks’ time a young growth will have pushed its nose out of the soil to the right or to the left, and the roots will have developed so strongly that you will not find it easy to pull the plant out.

Leave the rooted plant in position until the third week of November, when you can sever it from its parent about 2 inches above soil level, but leave it where it is until the following early April when it can be transplanted to the spot where it is to grow.

Give it only enough water to keep the soil just moist at first, but when the flower bud appears gradually increase the amounts.

They produce magnificent flowers which last a surprisingly long time, and once again the bulbs can be planted out in the garden after they have finished indoors. In a year or two they will have recovered from their artificial forcing and will flower outdoors.

Some of the smaller bulbs, such as crocus, snowdrops, scillas and muscari should not be brought into the warmth and the light until the flowers are beginning to show colour. For some reason yellow crocuses resent forcing indoors, so choose other colors for this purpose or lift yellow varieties in the garden and pot them up at the last moment as they are beginning to show color and then bring them into the house.

Many other bulbs in the garden can be dug up, potted and brought into the home for the final glory of their flowering and then returned to their original outdoor space to continue their lives and prepare for next year’s flowering.