A seasonal guide to indoor gardening - Softcover

Indoor plants respond to the changing seasons just as outdoor plants do, and the best houseplant gardeners should adapt how they care for their plants as the seasons change. A Seasonal Guide to Indoor Gardening is a complete handbook to the changing needs of houseplants through the year, with specific notes on what to do in spring, summer, winter and fall for all types of indoor plants. An extensive section in each seasonal segment of the book covers houseplants that are at their best in each season. Over 200 different plants are covered, each illustrated.In addition, there are helpful notes on plant propagation, pests and diseases and how to treat them, general houseplant care, and much more in this extremely helpful all around guide to houseplant wisdom. (7 X 91/4, 224 pages, b&w photos, illustrations)

Even indoors, plants are attuned to seasons. In A Seasonal Guide , Kramer gives general directions, followed by notes on the seasonal care needed by each of 12 plant groups: begonias, bromeliads, bulbs, cacti, ferns, flowering plants, foliage plants, geraniums, gesneriads, orchids, palms, and succulents. Next comes a listing of almost 100 plants that peak in a particular season. Small line drawings--about six to a page--on the right-hand page face a few notes on general care on the left. The whole plant is not usually shown, and sometimes its visual character is lost through lack of detail. The text is clear, practical, and comfortable in tone, offering such fresh ideas as growing house plants from seed. More information on the invaluable summering of plants outdoors would have been useful. The photos and captions that accompany the text are practical but uninspiring. Yet this book whets the appetite for what the author calls the "adventure of gardening" and spotlights an often overlooked aspect of growing plants indoors. Know Your Houseplants is basically a "field" guide, identifying 221 houseplants--some that are popular and easy to grow and some that are less familiar. (Ferns, palms, and cacti are not included.) Kramer devotes the first quarter of his book to covering briefly where to buy houseplants, how to care for them, and what specific environments, such as terrariums, might be considered. Then he introduces a simple system of identification based on the coding of differences in leaf shape, edge, and veining. The rest of the book pictures plants arranged by code, not dissimilar to Dewey. A silhouette of the plant and a close-up drawing of one leaf face the name of the plant and a few words of culture on the opposite page. Four plants to a page are usual. Kramer also includes a list of mail-order houses that sell houseplants. While these are one-idea books with not much depth, they are both pleasant and useful additions to large gardening collections.
- Sharon Levin, Univ. of Vermont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.