The Houseplant Handbook

It’s always a welcome surprise when a book lives up to its name. After all, it’s hard to sum up
everything about a book in just a few words. The Houseplant Handbook: Basic Growing
Techniques and a Directory of 300 Everyday Houseplants is everything that its name suggests.
Chock full of basic and more advanced indoor gardening techniques; The Houseplant Handbook
gives you everything you need to grow a healthy, prolific, eye-catching indoor garden. Author
David Squire is a horticulturist and prolific garden author, who combines his expertise in both
areas to provide you with a true handbook meant to walk you through just about any indoor
gardening scenario.
In this complete guide of houseplant care you’ll find instructions and clear explanations for a
wide variety of gardening techniques. The 224-page book teaches you houseplant growing
basics, like lighting and temperature, as well as watering and humidity and feeding. There’s a
section on repotting with step-by-step instructions, including photos. And you’ll discover tips
for supporting your houseplants, as well as pruning them.
If you want to increase your indoor garden without having to buy new plants, Squire includes
instructions on every possible way to propagate houseplants. Learn how to sow houseplant
seeds and which houseplants can be grown from seed. These include wax begonia, cyclamen,
impatiens and coleus.
The Houseplant Handbook has an extensive section on growing houseplants from a variety of
cuttings. Simple instructions with photos show you how to take every type of cutting possible,
including stem-tip cuttings, leaf-stem cuttings, leaf-petiole cuttings, whole- and cross-leaf
cuttings and horizontal and vertical cane cuttings. You’ll even learn how to grow cuttings from
cactus and succulents, and which plants can be grown from runners and plantlets.
If your houseplants have become root bound, Squire shows you how to successfully divide and
replant them. The book lists the various houseplants suitable for dividing, including cast-iron
plant, peacock plant, spider plant, various ferns and peace lily. And if a houseplant has become
too tall or unwieldy, the book takes you through how to air layer the plant.
The comprehensive plant directory section of The Houseplant Handbook includes 300 plants.
This invaluable reference features photos of each houseplant with growth habit information,
care instructions and how to propagate the plant.
Julie Bawden-Davis is a garden writer and master gardener, who since 1985
has written for publications such as Organic Gardening, The American
Gardener, Wildflower, Better Homes and Gardens and The Los Angeles

Times. She is the author of 10 books, including Reader’s Digest Flower
Gardening, Fairy Gardening, The Strawberry Story Series, and Indoor
Gardening the Organic Way, and is the founder of HealthyHouseplants.com.
Her backyard is a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.