A living organism for live plants in the soil

Soil for foliage plants falls into three main types. Ordinary potting soil should be porous and well drained. It contains approximately equal parts of good topsoil, coarse sand and organic matter (leafmold, humus or peatmoss) with about an eighth part by bulk of dried cow manure and bone meal-a pint to each bushel of the mixture. Woodsy soils, for installations containing more organic material, should be similar but contain about twice as much leafmold, humus or peat-moss. Very porous soils that useful for snake plants and other semi-succulent and succulent plants are simply the ordinary soil mixture with the addition of half-inch pieces broken brick or flower pots equal to the amount of sand used.

Potting and repotting should be, if necessary, at the beginning of the growing season, which is usually late winter or early spring. Many plants have this attention once a year. Large specimens and smaller examples of slow growing plants can go years without repotting. In the intervening years are they top-dressed by removing as much of the surface soil such as can be made without damaging the roots and replaced by a new, rich mixture. Small, young plants of fast-growing species cultivated in perhaps a second potting soil in the summer, early enough for them to fill their new containers with roots for the winter.

Increase plant foliage is protected in several ways. The distribution of large specimens in two or more smaller on time potting soil is a simple and obvious method in some cases. Certain types of produce baby plants as shifts that can be detached and began as separate persons. Cuttings arising and, in some cases, leaf cuttings, usually planted in sand or vermiculite in a terrarium or under an inverted Mason jar, allow for the easy spread of many plants. Spring and summer are most suitable for inserting cuttings seasons.

Air-layering is an easy way of protecting young plants of tall wegspatten specimens that also "leggy" have become attractive. A good example is the gold dust plant. This consists of a stem some distance below the leafy tip, through a narrow circle of bark around removing or by a cut in an upwards direction in wounding and nearly halfway up the stem, then link the cut open with a splinter of wood. Then a generous bundle of damp sphagnum moss is tied around the cut and the moss securely packed in polyethylene plastic film.

After the wounded stalk is rooted in the moss, is the top part cut off with roots attached. After the plastic film is deleted, the rooted part to establish itself as a new young plant in a pot planted.