This section is from the book "Window Gardening", by S. T. Maynard. Also available from Amazon: Window gardening.
To grow this most beautiful flower to perfection requires much care and skill. Slips should be made of new soft growth or by dividing the suckers into single shoots. When well rooted, these should be placed in boxes or pots and kept growing until May, the end shoots in the mean time being pinched out several times if necessary, so that the plants may not be over three or four inches high, but stocky. These are planted out in May as soon as the ground can be worked in good garden soil. Continue pinching until July, and in August take up and pot in rich soil and put in a cool shaded place for a few days until they become established, then gradually expose them to light and heat.
If large blossoms are desired, all the buds but the central one on each branch should be picked off; this will cause those which are left to increase in proportion to the number of buds on the plant. If only one or two large flowers are desired, all lateral branches should be prevented from growing, and the whole force of the plant directed to the central shoot. Success will be in proportion to the skill displayed in directing the growth where it is desired.
 
Continue to: