The house plant grower is only likely to come into contact with the anthuriums and, of these. For preference they all require very hot, humid conditions, which will mean a temperature consistently higher.

A spacious propagating case will then be required to house these large and somewhat spiteful cuttings – all the ananas have vicious spines along the edges of their leaves and need careful handling.

Another propagating method is to cut away the top of the mature fruit with the tufted rosette and allow to dry before placing it firmly on top of a propagating bed, or potful of suitable propagating mixture. It will reduce the chances of rotting if the mixture is covered with a fine layer of sand on which the fruit may rest.

For best effect these plants should be grown in the garden room with growth twined around overhead wires or trellis framework. The beauty of the exotic, pendulous flowers will then he fully appreciated. Plants may also he grown in pots, but they seldom flower so well as when planted out in the border of the garden room. Keep moist in summer and on the dry side in winter; feed as soon as new growth begins in spring.

In good growing conditions plants can be very invasive, so will need hard pruning any time after flowering. Mealy bugs can be troublesome pests should they find their way in between the twining stems of the plant, so a careful watch must be kept in order to eradicate them before they have a chance to get established.

After they have finished flowering indoors it is usually best to plant hydrangeas out in the garden where they will quickly establish themselves as colourful shrubs. Before planting it is important that the ground he well watered, as well as the compost in the pot; thereafter the soil surrounding the plant must be kept watered until the plant is established. So many plants fail as a result of the soil drying out after planting.

All over the world there must be millions of liens grown annually for indoor decoration, ranging from the tiny creeping fig, Ficus pumila, to majestic trees of F. benjamina and F. benghalensis. None of them flower when grown in pots, so the attraction is entirely in the foliage. Ficus elastica robusta is the now greatly improved ordinary rubber plant which is produced in vast quantities annually.

Allowing for the fact that they may prove problematical indoors they are still superb plants for the greenhouse, garden room, or for planting in the garden as temporary or permanent residents, depending on whether they are hardy or not. There are obviously ideal times for propagating cuttings but my experience is that when someone gives you a healthy cutting of a particularly good variety it will root at almost any time if the conditions are right: warm, lightly shaded and moist.

In the garden room it would he essential to provide a warm bed of moist peat in which to plunge the plant=pots. Provided the surroundings are shaded the` maximum tem- perature is unimportant. Propagate from stem cuttings with two to three leaves attached.

The ‘easy’ tag must apply only to plants grown in the garden room or greenhouse, as the light conditions available indoors would present problems. In the light garden room they can he most impressive when in full colour; to achieve this it is important that plants should be kept very much on the dry side during the winter months when they are resting.

When new growth is evident, usually in February, the amount of water should be gradually increased and thereafter the compost should be kept moist but never permanently saturated until the plants begin to shed their leaves naturally towards the end of the summer.

Richly coloured bracts will give a much more effective show if growth is trained to a trellis or wire support in the shape of a fan. Plants should be hard pruned in February, the previous year’s growth being cut hack to an inch or two in length. Good light is all important as results are invariably poor in shaded conditions. Pests are not too troublesome, though mealy bug can he a problem, particularly when growth becomes matted and there is difficulty in making contact with the hugs when spraying.

There are many smaller and more compact varieties which do well as indoor plants and one has only to send to a specialist nursery for a list in order to make a selection. All will do well in a temperature in the region of 16C. (66F.), and require more or less standard house plant treatment. When plants become old and leggy, as they do in time, new plants may be raised from cuttings which will root fairly readily in close, warm conditions.

Plants can be raised from cuttings; we are usually advised to insert one cutting in a small pot, but better results will be obtained if four or five cuttings are inserted around the edge of the pot. A convenient way of raising them is to fill the pot with J.I.P.2 compost, make holes for the cuttings with a pencil and fill the holes with moist peat. The cuttings are then inserted in the peat in which they will root before finding their way into the compost, where they will grow very much better.

The Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa) is another poisonous mushroom, although quite a rare species, which is distinguished from the other type of Death Cap (A. phalloides ssp. yam) by its sharp club-shaped cap and frayed stipe. It grows predominantly in mountain forests on a limestone subsoil. It is as potentially dangerous as the Death Cap and its fruit-bodies contain another type of toxin called virosin, whose toxic effects can be compared with those of amanitoxins. It should also be mentioned that amanitoxins are present in some other fungi, which are not necessarily related to the Amanita genus. These poisonous substances were in clusters on rotten wood. It can quite easily be mistaken for the edible mushroom Kuehneromyces mutabilis.

Experiments have proved that although high temperatures lessen the virulence of the poison, they do not destroy the toxic substances. Finally the character of the Death Cap arises during which the poison fully penetrates the blood stream so that any late stomach-pumping is ineffective.

Agaric has a stupefying effect and in some countries it is used as a narcotic. It resembles the deistic potion known as Soma, which dates back. more than 3,000 years. It is also the same hallucinogenic drug: which was used long ago in Siberia, Kamchatka and Chukotka.’ by the indigenous population.

D. godseffiana Florida Beauty is an entirely different plant in appearance and is much more suitable for room decoration; leaves are smaller and much more numerous and the plant has an overall golden appearance. The improved type is considerably more attractive than D. godseftiana, which has dull green leaves faintly speckled with white.

Not easy to grow (many of my professional colleagues consider them difficult), we have found that by planting from six to nine of these in earthenware saucers some 3 ft. in diameter and 6 in. in depth they grow extremely well. In the larger area plants have a much better root run and respond by growing to a height of or 4 ft., which is unusually tall for this variety. Plants placed in offices in such containers also give much better results than those growing in more conventional pots. Temperature and general conditions should be similar to that recommended for the first two dracaenas.

Of the flowering pot plants Azalea Indica is undoubtedly 90 one of the most important and, in spite of the ever-increasing price, one cannot imagine that azaleas will fall off in popularity. Almost all the better quality plants available in Europe originate from Belgium where, it seems, there arc areas particularly suited to the culture of Azalea indica. Available in a wide range of colours from white to deep red, they present little difficulty for the house plant grower who can provide the conditions they prefer.

For such a colourful and diverse family of plants it would be impossible to give a country of origin. The temperature given above is merely fired as a general guide and, on the whole, they are moderately easy. Begonia rex is probably the most familiar as far as pot plants go, and these are offered by nurserymen the world over in a wide range of exciting colours. Reasonably good light is required and a temperature of not less than 16C. (66′ F.) should he the aim. The majority of pot plants will last for at least one year after purchase before they need potting on into larger containers.

Not strictly house plants, the echeverias are succulents which are little trouble to care for and do very well on the light, sunny window ledge. This is another species to which anyone who wishes to build up a collection of interesting and unusual plants may well turn his attention.

In appearance, however, the leaves are very different to the rosette-forming leaves of the echeveria. The epiphvllum has much longer leaves, either flat or slightly triangular in shape. They are not particularly attractive, but any deficiency in foliage appeal is more than compensated for in the flowers which are brilliantly colourful.

In recent years epiphyllums have become much more popular and as a result there arc many new hybrids available, and there is little doubt that they would provide considerable interest for anyone wishing to specialise. New plants can be raised from seed or from leaf sections a few inches in length inserted in sandy compost. Cuttings may be taken at almost any time if the conditions are favourable.

Everybody’s favourite, this plant can often he seen growing in the most appalling conditions and must surely rate as one of the most durable of all house plants. There can be few schools and offices about the country that do not have their sprinkling of chloroph vtums dotted around the window-sills.

With all these attractions the plant is almost bound to be costly, even if you discount the length of time it takes to bring it to maturity: the longer plants spend in the heated greenhouses of the nursery the more the customer will have to pay for them.

Whenever the plants are mentioned among a group of people the question of leaf tips turning brown will invariably crop up. All sorts of answers are put forward and remedies suggested, but to my mind chlorophytum leaf tips turn brown simply because of starvation. As they increase in size the plants develop an astonishing number of thick, fleshy roots which wind around in the bottom of the pot and, having nothing to feed on, the paucity of nourishment is reflected in the brown leaf condition.