Who among you has ever taken care of a houseplant? Let’s see a show of hands. Ok, nice. Now, who among you has ever KILLED a houseplant? All of those hands should have stayed up, and if you put your hand down, you’re lying. I blame my mom, Nijole, for my borderline obsession with houseplants. I say borderline, because I strongly feel that if I don’t continually check myself, my house would have no room for guests, my dogs, or my husband. And thinking about it right now, I want to go find new succulents for my porch – I MUST NOT GIVE IN!!  Growing up, we always had a house full of plants and they always looked fabulous. When I left for college I felt something was lacking and immediately started collecting my own plants. And most of them died. I blame those losses on college life and taking Genetics three times. But once I had my own apartment my plants started thriving. And growing in number. I was either dividing my own plants, buying new ones or getting some from friends and family, such that my tiny collection started looking like a jungle. Happy times! And yes I had learned some key points on plant care from my mom, and by trial and error (see above), and sometimes you need a good reference book to get you through. I’m very visual so the ideal book came in the form of the Ortho’s All About Houseplants, which has a new version printed in 2007. It is very easy to read and understand, contains lots of pictures to identify plants and their pests, steps on repotting and propagation, plus the skinny on pots, soil and light requirements. What makes this book great and worth the price is that a beginner can glean so much worth from its pages, and so can someone who’s taken care of plants for decades. When I get a new plant, one I haven’t necessarily had before, this is the first book I turn to for its general care. And when I notice some brown spots, or yellowing leaves, I read through the troubleshooting section in search of answers.

This isn’t going to have every plant you might possibly have in your house, but it sure is a good start. Enjoy!

Tags: , Cleveland Botancial Garden, Houseplants

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 10:54 am and is filed under Books, Renata Brown, Tropical Plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.