African Violets: Gifts from Nature-The Series Book One In 1892 while on an evening stroll with his fiance in East Africa, Baron Walter von Saint Paul discovered an unusual plant with delicate purple flowers growing along a stream on his plantation. Legend has it that he picked a bouquet and presented it to his fiance, staring the worlds love affair with the African violet. Today, this plant is indeed the most popular indoor flowering plant grown by gardeners and plant enthusiasts around the world. Whether your goal is to enjoy beautifully flowering African violets in your home, to become an expert grower of these lovely plants, or to develop a deeper understanding of how the plants function, a series of three books are being written to meet your needs. The Series provides you with an authoritative guide, taking you through all the steps necessary for growing elegant African violets and at the same time explaining to you the secrets of why the plants respond to the various growing practices used daily in their care. When writing about African violets, Melvin J. Robeys expertise, pragmatism, humor and love of the subject are clearly evident. The reader will find down-to-earth, up-to-date information in this first of three books in The Series of African Violets: Gifts from Nature. Your African violets wont flower? In this book eight common problems are explored, exposing the secrets to having plants whose crowning glory of blossoms tells everyone you are the superhero of the African violet world. You will also enjoy 44 dazzling color photographs and illustrations, along with several black and white illustrations. A unique chapter on the history of the African violet plant allows the reader to explore the fascinating story of how this spectacular houseplant has captured the imagination of plant-olgists worldwide. For more information on African Violets: Gifts from Nature--The Series visit www.africanvioletbooks.com.

The European Garden Flora is the definitive manual for the accurate identification of cultivated ornamental flowering plants. Designed to meet the highest scientific standards, the vocabulary has nevertheless been kept as uncomplicated as possible so that the work is fully accessible to the informed gardener as well as to the professional botanist. This new edition has been thoroughly reorganised and revised, bringing it into line with modern taxonomic knowledge. Although European in name, the Flora covers plants cultivated in most areas of the United States and Canada as well as in non-tropical parts of Asia and Australasia. Volume 5 completes the series, and includes many important ornamental families, such as Labiatae, Solanaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Acanthaceae, Campanulaceae, and the largest family of Dicotyledons, the Compositae.

Here is Montague Free's classic work on how to succesfully propagate and care for African violets. This book provides extensive information on all aspects of growing this popular house plant. Among the book's many photographs are examples of the most popular and newest varieties of saintpaulias, as well as sequence pictures which give step-by-step directions on propagating, potting, watering, and fertilizing your plants.

When you suspect you have a pest or disease in your plant room you need to know what to do about it and fast! This book was written with that in mind. Alls pests, insects and disease of the African violet and how to treat them are included. Usually it is enjoyable to raise the lovely African violet hybrids available today. But at times it seems African violets and other gesneriads have more pests than any other in the plant kingdom. Armed and forewarned you have a good chance to conquer any of these pests or diseases that sometimes daunt us.