Rev. ed. of: The houseplant encyclopedia / Maggie Stuckey. 1993.

"A guide to selecting and growing plants for your home, including a plant profile quiz"--

Become the best houseplant parent you can be with beginner-friendly tips and tools. Houseplants are a great way to decorate, ease stress, and stay connected with nature when you're indoors—and it's the perfect summer activity. If you're looking to grow your collection and need some advice, Houseplants for Beginners has all the information you'll need to successfully care for your plants and help them thrive. Learn how to shop for and repot houseplants, choose the best place in your home for them, and address a variety of challenges like pests and diseases. With 120 common houseplant profiles grouped from low maintenance to high maintenance, you can familiarize yourself with individual plant needs and choose the best ones for your lifestyle. The perks of houseplants—Explore a brief history of houseplants and the benefits of bringing nature inside, including relieving stress and inviting more creativity and happiness into your life. Plant wisdom—Find key insights to set you up for success as you begin your houseplant adventure, from propagation techniques to safety suggestions. Troubleshooting tips—Get straightforward advice for solving seemingly difficult houseplant problems. Start a new summer hobby and fill your home with flourishing houseplants with help from this essential guide for beginners.

Introduction We all have the need to nurture and care for other living things. Maybe you aren’t ready for a cat, dog, or fish, but bringing home a houseplant can fulfill that need. Place a plant on the windowsill and it will add living beauty to your home. Wake up every day and it will greet you as it cleans the air and improves your mood. Houseplants ask for so little but add so much life to a home. The care of that green friend falls solely on the owner. Being successful in that undertaking is important, so our hope is this book can help you keep your green roommate alive, healthy, and vibrant. There is no such thing as a natural green thumb. Many believe either you are born with one or not. The claim of having a brown or black thumb has had many dead plants placed at its doorstep. Yet having a green thumb is just a matter of paying attention to the needs of your plants and noticing when they are trying to tell you something. Killing a plant or two (or more) is not a crime, and can be a good learning experience. Don’t be discouraged, as growing beautiful plants is easy if you have the time and pay attention to their specific needs, and this book will show you how to do that. Time restraints are another popular excuse as to why someone has no plants in their home. One easy plant can take less than five minutes a week to care for, and the benefits it brings will lead to a desire for more greenery in your life. Having plants continually die leads to frustration and possibly plastic plants. Not acceptable. When a few key components such as lighting preference, water, and placement are understood and correctly executed, your plants will thrive. Liking and being successful with plants has more rewards than are always apparent. Plants have been proven to clean the air around us. B. C. Wolverton, a NASA scientist, conducted many experiments in the 1980s and found that plants remove VOCs—volatile organic chemicals—from our indoor environments. These chemicals can come from carpet, paint, manufactured furniture, household cleaning products, and more. One plant can remove most of the VOCs from a 100-square-foot area. An important aspect of owning houseplants is the undeniable therapy that caring for plants affords us. In this uncertain, sometimes scary, fast-paced world, slowing down to care for something that is dependent on us can be therapeutic. Pick up a plant, remove dead leaves, check the growing medium for water, and wash the leaves with a soft cloth or sponge. Move quietly from plant to plant, or maybe you prefer to sing, hum, or talk to your plants. No judgment here. One plant may become many more when the time it takes to care for one plant isn’t enough to untangle the knots from the day. Many professional people own large collections of plants for just this reason. Working with their plants takes them away from the enormous stress of their jobs. As Elvin McDonald wrote in his book Plants as Therapy, “I believe that plants have enormous potential for maintaining emotional stability and . . . improving the lives of human beings.” Nothing truer can be said. Quite often, if you have a problem with a houseplant, you search online for information and help. But not every piece of information floating around on the Internet is true or pertinent to the specific plant for which you are caring. The information in this book will dispel the myths and misinformation about successfully raising houseplants. Plant societies are another good source of information. If you wish to learn as much as you can about a family of plants, such as cacti and other succulents, orchids, or African violets, join a plant society in your area. The people in these clubs have usually been growing those plants for a long time. Nothing beats the hands-on knowledge of people who have successfully grown a family of plants. Because they love their plants, they are more than willing to share their expertise. They want you to succeed with your plants. Besides, it is a wonderful way to interact with people. Joining a plant group can help you find like-minded people who don’t tune out when you talk nonstop about your plants. I hope the information in this book will give you the confidence you need to bring a plant or two home to improve your environment and give it a warmer, more comfortable feeling that will bring joy to those who enter. You may find that almost before you know it, people entering your home will comment, “It’s like a jungle in here!” Is that a bad thing? I think not. It is a good thing!

Discover the joys and self-nurturing benefits of plant parenthood, from learning how to begin building your own lush plant family to getting into those fun tips on how to care for your green gurls, with this beautiful, illustrated guide from the dazzling creator of the @plantkween Instagram account. “We all love some new growth, dahling.” Six years ago, Christopher Griffin was just beginning the plant parenthood journey with one small Marble Queen Pothos. Today, this Black Queer non-binary femme plant influencer known as Plant Kween tends to a family of more than 200 healthy green gurls in the Brooklyn apartment they call home. You Grow, Gurl! is Kween’s fun and fabulous guide to becoming a plant parent and keeping your green gurls growing and thriving. Anyone can be a plant parent! It’s all about TLC—taking the time and energy to focus on a plant’s needs, and ultimately your own. Featuring 200 full-color photos and illustrations, practical instructions and tips—on everything from propagating to measuring humidity to repotting—activities, and stories, this fun and joyful guide shows how to green-up any space and have it serving those lush lewks. Self-care takes many forms and tending to your plants’ needs helps you grow too. In addition to information and advice on plant care, Kween provides meditations, mindfulness activities, playlists, and more to help you practice self-care through plant-care. As Kween says, “We can learn a lot about how we treat ourselves, how we treat others, and how we navigate the world from these green lil creatures.” Healing and growing your heart, body, and soul takes time, love, and focus. Taking care of plants teaches you to apply that same attention and love to yourself and helps you find new pathways to explore on your own botanical adventure to self-love.

Simplify life and amplify living with influencer Rachel Aust's visual guide to mastering the minimalist lifestyle. Declutter and reorganize! Living with less contributes to a greater sense of fulfillment, contentment, and a more meaningful life. The minimalist lifestyle--focusing on scaling back your possessions and simplifying your life to just the essentials--helps you to achieve peace and purpose. Indulgences and excess often lead to discontentment and depression, but adopt minimal living, and you'll find that less is more: More time because you don't waste it caring for and organizing stuff More space because you don't fill it with objects of marginal value More money because you don't spend it on unnecessary things More clarity because your mind isn't bogged down by the clutter around you More joy because your energy is spent on experiences and connections Using decision trees, flow charts, icons, and other graphics, Less shows how minimalism can be applied to any area of life--including home, wardrobe, decor, cooking, cleaning, finances, and time. Rachel Aust shows you that minimalism can be adapted to suit your own goals to help you achieve the joy of less!

This book is a guide, a manual, a handbook. But most of all this is my love letter to all the plants in the world. Inside this book you will find my notes from 17 years of passion and experience of living in the Nature. This guide is specifically for those who do not have plenty of space in their backyards, and want to start approaching the art of growing plants at home. They will give you as much love as you give them. Often more. My name is Christo Sullivan, and 17 years ago I was fortunate enough to had become who I wanted to be. No, let me restate that... I was fortunate enough to become, fairly early in my life, what society wanted me to be. Then I quit, and I started to become who I wanted to be. I had enough to part from the world and retire, and so I did. From that moment on I learned to live surrounded by nature. In this book I want to share with you my knowledge about harboring plants inside our houses, my best raccomandations, how to grow them, and how to attend to them. Houseplants are a great way to ease stress, purify our air and stay connected with nature even when when you're indoors, even if you're not an expert. Inexpensive to purchase, easy to care for and a statement in any space they inhabit, growing these plants is very easy, if you know how to do it. The Houseplant for Beginners and Plant Lovers is your no-fuss guide that takes you from being an absolute beginners to know a great deal about houseplants. In this book you will find out: The benefits of having plants inside your house The 15 lowest-maintenance plants to keep inside The 14 best plants to keep you healthy How to manage the 4 Elements of house planting Water, Light, Hearth and Heat The best kept secret on how to make your plants propagate efficiently The only efficient techniques to groom and prune How to solve common houseplants problems, the Do's and Dont's The Houseplants Guide for Beginners and Plant Lovers is really packed with all the informations you'll need to successfully make your houseplants thrive. This is the book I wished I had when I first started. Click on "Buy Now" and get started in the very rewarding path to grow and love your houseplants!