This is a happy compromise if you shop wisely for flowering plants. Azaleas, cyclamen, or poinsettias purchased from your florist or greenhouse will stay in bloom for weeks, even months, if properly cared for. Choose plants with lots of buds, those not yet at their peak of color. Once in full bloom, position the plants so that they receive light but not full sun, which will push them rapidly to maturity and beyond. Cyclamen are an exception. They need full sun and ample water in order to go on blooming.

Installing a small light setup will provide you with the potential of blooming plants throughout winter that you can combine with faithful foliage performers. Many flowering favorites, such as geraniums and African violets, bloom repeatedly though not continuously indoors. If you rotate the plants, bringing those in bloom into view and placing those that have ended a period of bloom back under the lights, you’ll increase greatly the color potential for your massed grouping of house plants.

Forcing spring-flowering bulbs is another way that you can flood your home with brilliant blooming plants –and at a small cost,too. Tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils can give you a late January-into-March bloom.

For a wallop of color that will lift your spirits in midwinter, don’t overlook that majestic bulb plant, the amaryllis. The cost of a cold-treated bulb (to bloom at Christmas during its first year) may run close to many dollars. Your original investment, however, can pay off in yearly bloom for many winters to come if you are willing to give the plant the necessary aftercare it needs for continued performance. Choose from velvet red, melting pink, coral, and white as well as a large number of striped amaryllis varieties.

If you’re an outdoor as well as an indoor gardener, don’t overlook the many possibilities of lifting and potting some of the late-blooming garden plants, such as chrysanthemums and marigolds, to bring indoors before the first frost. If you wish to do so, make cuttings of such colorful foliage plants as coleus or waxy, red-leaf bedding begonias to root for indoor growth.

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