Have you ever come home from work dog-tired on a cool evening and smelled fried potatoes and onions? In my book, they belong alongside freshly baked bread as a “welcome-homer.”

If you, too, are a confirmed onion eater, no matter what anyone says then you might like to know what varieties are best suited to the many. different uses of onion.

There are hundreds of varieties of onions, but we seldom use more than four or five.

Here are some facts that will help you “know your onions.”

“Bunch” onions are those which are used green. They may be used in salads and relishes.

There are many varieties of the “dry” onion type. Any of these can also be used green. Some are better winter keepers than others.

Some are excellent keepers and good for general use.

A small, mild variety is good for creaming and for glace onions. They are best when used before fully mature.

Spanish onions are a good all-around variety but cannot be kept too long. They are good fried or creamed.

Of course, if you are a real, honest-to-goodness onion eater, you’ll want to grow a few red ones. Now, there’s a real onion!

Like hundreds of other plant lovers, spend many happy days in their flower garden. But, always when the last chrysanthemum had been cut down by killing frost there was the dreary time, between late fall and spring, when all growing things were withered and no flower bloomed.

After one of these ruthless frosts, which snuffed all color from the world and made it sad, Mrs. Preston decided to build a winter window garden in her home.

Since then she has had twelve months of color. A scarlet amaryllis, almost hidden by the foliage of an Easter lily, glows in the window. A novelty in gloxinias, called Lady Slipper, blooms year after year in the same pot with only a short rest period between flowering. Several potted geraniums bloom in their sea son and two of them (Nutmeg and Rose) have fragrant, spicy leaves which add greatly to their desirability and lend an interest even when the plants are no longer in bloom.

A Gloriosa lily, with strange flowers, has climbed 6 feet to the top of the window to crown it with its gold and crimson beauty. There are orchids, some of which bloom during the winter holidays to furnish corsages for friends.

Layering is a safe, sure, simple way to increase many types of plants, and particularly the climbers and danglers with which this book is concerned. The first requirement is that the plant have long, lax or drooping stems – which vining plants do. The rest is easy, because the stem is not severed from the parent until the new plant is well rooted and can survive on its own. Humidifying devices, bottom heat, and close protection are seldom called for.

Garden plants layer readily, sometimes even spontaneously. And layering is equally easy for indoor or greenhouse vines. A wandering stem or runner is simply pinned down on the soil in a nearby pot, and severed when it is securely rooted.

Ground layering in the garden takes place at the base of the parent plant. Loosen and lighten a small section of soil, and mix in some peat or other humus to help hold moisture. Select a firm, semiwoody stem, and open the thick skin in one of several ways to speed up rooting. The stem can be nicked underneath with a sharp knife, or split and held open by a small piece of toothpick or match, or simply twisted just enough to break the outside skin and separate a few of the inside tissues. Some plants insist on rooting at or near a node, others don’t care where. And some softer stems don’t even need to be nicked.

Most Enthusiastic gardeners agree that gardening is a grand adventure with thrilling experiences at almost every turn. Yet as I look around among my gardening acquaintances. I am amazed to find that many miss much of the joy of their hobby by limiting their activities to the few short months of summer.

There are many ways the hobby of gardening can be an absorbing enterprise the entire year, and one of them is by allowing the seed and nursery catalogs to carry you through strange and exciting adventures during the winter.

There is an idea abroad among matter-of-fact gardeners that a seed or nursery catalog is merely sales literature for ordering plant materials. Their catalogs are discarded after their needs are ordered so as not to clutter up the house. They miss the pleasure and instruction which can be theirs from the correct use of catalogs.

To make clear what one gardener thinks is correct use, let me recount a few of the exciting adventures that have come my way during the years in which I have let seed and nursery catalogs be a part of my year-round living, but please overlook the perpendicular pronoun if it becomes too prominent!

Young or newly transplanted vines are more likely to survive their first winter in a cold climate if they receive some special protection. Questionably hardy vines, or those planted in exposed areas, may need protection every year of their life. In any case, a vigorous, well-grown plant has the greatest chance to resist winter damage.

All vines in general, and evergreens in particular, need plentiful moisture in the soil until it freezes. This is your best insurance against late winter and early spring “burning,” in which warmth and sunlight draw moisture from the leaves before the soil is thawed and the roots are ready to send up moisture from below.

For extra protection, mulch the soil over the vine’s roots with several inches of buckwheat or cottonseed hulls, salt hay or straw, ground corncobs or sugar cane, or similar material. Snow is an excellent mulch, while it lasts.

Or make an eight-inch mound of soil over the roots and around the base of the stems, and wrap the rest of the stems in burlap. In extreme climates, loosen the roots on one side of a deciduous vine, lay its trunk or stems down in a trench dug out from the other side, and cover the whole with soil until early spring.

Home gardeners find that rooting scented-leaved geraniums is not always easy. Often they have a favorite plant they want to propagate and after several attempts meet with failure. Among the many kinds, some root very easily, while others are very tricky.

Of the popular scented-leaved geraniums, the lemon-scented and the rose-scented varieties root easily and quickly under common propagating methods.

The lemon-scented (Pelargonium crispum) is a small stemmed plant, with tiny crinkled leaves, which requires considerably more water than most geraniums. Take cuttings about 3-3/4 inches long and trim off all leaves from the bottom up to 1-1/4 inches. Make a clean cut beneath an eye, dip the end into 3X rooting powder and insert the cuttings in clean sand, deep enough so that the lower leaves do not touch the sand. Shade until signs of growth are evident. Then remove shade and keep plants a little drier.

Oak-leaved varieties (Pelargonium quercifolium) are not too difficult. Take tender cuttings, but if they are hardened, root them under drier conditions. A 1X rooting powder is best. Practically all hardy and easy-to-root as well are the flowering scented varieties, none of which demand anything beyond normal cultural conditions. Here again water well, and allow the sand to become rather dry, but not arid, before watering again.

Hollies will grow in full sun or partial shade, but will become spindly in dense shade. In windswept areas hollies should be planted in sheltered locations. Consider location carefully also from the standpoint of space. They grow slowly, and although they are small at first, they eventually become broad specimens. Since they will remain in the same location for many years they will benefit by thorough soil preparation. Heavy clay soil can be improved by the addition of sand and two to three bushels of leaf mold or peat moss, for plants three to four feet tall. Small hollies will not need that much humus immediately; more can be worked into the soil as the plants grow.

Potted or canned hollies may be planted at any time during the growing season. Balled and b u rl a pp ed plants transplant best in March and April, just before the new growth commences, and again in late summer and fall. Careful handling in the planting operation is imperative. A broken root ball may ruin the plant. At the time of planting, a depression should be left around each plant. This should be filled with water after planting, and repeated whenever the soil becomes dry during the first year.

Lighting for indoor houseplant, what does that mean? In a nutshell, it means that good light – and enough of it – is an important consideration in your plans for lasting effects with indoor plants. If you want to use vines for example on inside walls, away from windows, choose foliage varieties that will tolerate semishade. Or use the vines for temporary rather than permanent or lasting effect.

Sunlight

Daylight is necessary to all plants. Sunlight is another matter. The effect of sunlight – actually falling on a plant, not just near it; in varying strength and of varying durations according to plant varieties – is to stimulate formation of buds and flowers. If you want to decorate with a flowering vine, you can be fairly sure that it should grow where it will receive more than just a touch of sunlight. It can, of course, be grown in any sunny place until it flowers, then brought in for colorful display in any spot.

Some vines and flowering houseplants will flower with less sunlight than others. Duration and intensity of sunlight also varies with the seasons and geographical areas. In a Northern winter, for example, the sun shines weakly and for a short time. At noon in August it is burning hot almost anywhere.

Whether the container garden consists of a single tub or window box, a set of matched urns, or many modular units grouped in various ways, the container is an integral part of the decorative design. It should, of course, be pleasing to the eye, but not so striking that it becomes the main object of interest at the expense of its plants. Its design – line, size, shape, color, texture – should be in harmony with both plants and setting. It should have an air of “belonging,” not of having been placed willy-nilly simply because a plant needed something to grow in.

Tall, tapering plants often look well in tall containers. Round, bushy plants are suitable for squat, square containers. Horizontal lines or bands around a container will make it seem lower, and vertical lines the reverse. Sometimes architectural style dictates the design of a container, sometimes an outstanding container will lead you to create or locate a setting for it. The theme can be antique or contemporary, simple or ornate, rural or urban.

Factors other than light affect the well-being of foliage plants grown in pots, tubs and other containers. To insure success you must make every effort to make the whole environment agreeable. Attention to one factor will not do.

Temperature is an obvious matter to consider. Here you must differentiate between natural temperatures and those obtained by artificial heating. High temperature levels of summer (which is the natural growing season of most plants) are ordinarily accompanied by long days, superior light and favorable atmospheric humidity. Such temperatures are not harmful to most house plants we discuss. Even the “cool room” kinds thrive in temperatures of 70 to 90 in summer.

But high temperatures maintained artificially in winter as well are an entirely different matter. The only plants that ordinarily stand these well are natives of the low-level tropics – the Amazon basin, tropical west Africa and similar regions. These kinds get along well without any winter season of rest. Some find the low relative humidity of the atmosphere that is induced by artificial heating difficult to stand; others do not seem to mind the dry air of American homes and apartments.