Houseplants for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Choosing, Growing, and Helping Your Plants Thrive

by Rebecca De La Paz

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. 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.

Fill your home with flourishing houseplants with help from this essential guide for beginners.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gardening, Plants

205 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 9, 2021

Reviews

[Weslyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been growing plants indoors both successfully and unsuccessfully for many years now. I’ve learned a lot through trial and error, but I thought it might be time to learn a little more about the plants I’m growing…not that many of my plants were actually in this book. That being said, I appreciated the plethora of plants included in this book even though the information became quite repetitive. I wish more would have been said about their care though. I also felt a little apprehensive about some of the watering guidelines. I *never* wait for my plants to show signs of “being thirsty” before watering them. I check the soil and base their watering needs off that. I also found the lighting instructions for each plant to be lacking. Specifying directions is great, but I think addressing the fact that some people have trees in their yards - which drastically effects the light - should have been mentioned. Everyone’s homes are not the same.

Overall, this is a good book for people who know zilch about houseplants. It gives enough information to get started despite the watering and light instructions being lackluster.

Thanks to Callisto Publisher’s Club for providing a copy of this book for me to read and review.

[Cassie Champagne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Needs better descriptions on the different house plants care. Love the intro bit 👌

[Emily Koester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great information and pictures. I need all the help I can get to keep some of these alive.

[Christine]

Wasn’t kidding about “for beginners” because the information for each plant was surprisingly so basic. Would’ve appreciated more unique personalized instructions for the plant profiles.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well organized book with good pictures to help newbies identify some of their plants. I say some, because this 192 paged book obviously cannot hope to cover all the available house plants out there, but it covers enough of the more common houseplants that it should help someone starting out.

If you are looking for in-depth information on how to care for a certain plant, keep looking. This book covers only the most basic of information on the plant. Things like preferred soil type, watering needs, what to look out for to indicate your plant is desperate for water (fyi: not recommended for you to let you plant get to this stage before watering), lighting needs, and the most basic of fertilizer needs.

The author does add a nice label as to whether or not the plant is pet friendly, but doesn't go into details about how bad it is, what the symptoms might be and a few are labelled "with exceptions." What the heck are the exceptions? No idea cause it's not explained. It is the most basic of info, folks, but may be handy for giving newcomers to the houseplant fam-jam an idea of what not to get if their feline or canine friend likes gnawing on live foliage.

The book is broken up into several sections, intro, easy to care for, not so easy to care for, diva plants (obviously not what the author named those sections, but what I would have called them). I don't agree where all the plants are placed, but I really think its location and caregiver dependent. Why? Cause a house in California is going to have very different living conditions then my little house in the far north. For example: it took me years to figure out have to keep a succulent alive in my house. The key? In my house, right on the windowsill of a north facing window and water the tiny dude about once every 1 to 2 weeks depending on the sun strength and temperature. I still can't keep a freaking cactus though. Those puppies are a mystical mystery to me.

Anyhow, I really did appreciate that the author had a glossary for terms used, the appendix, AND CITED HER REFERENCES FOR HER WORK!!!! *cue me celebrating* This way you can go check for yourself, yada yada yada. Non fiction book writers nowadays need to remember to cite their work. And thanks to that citation, I can go check the pet friendly ratings a little bit myself, though admittedly the SPCA website is also lacking a scale of how concerned you should be to have a particular plant in a house with your fur/feathered baby without you rooting around awhile.


All in all I think this is a great book for beginners and something of a general interest for anyone who already is an established plant parent who may or may not be looking into adding something new into the mix but just need the most basic of info to decide on what.

[Jillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. I read it on Kindle and got it through KU. I will be purchasing a hard copy though because it is really helpful. I love that every plant had a picture included. My favorite thing is that it includes whether the plant is safe for pets or not. That is the most important factor to me when selecting house plants so to see it at the top of every plant profile was super helpful. This is a great resource.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My house is starting to fill up with dracaena, aloe, shamrock, croton, and assorted succulents, so I figured it was time to do a good literature review.

The information is useful, although nothing that I couldn't find online. What sold me were the photos and descriptions of all the plants I now want to buy and somehow fit in my house.

[MMWins]

In my quest to become a better Plant parent, I stumbled across this book. It is very simply. The pictures are in color and will provide details of plant family each of the plants are in.
It also gives a break down on the plant caring from easiest to hardest.

I would recommend this book for anyone who was just getting his or her feet week and the plant parenting hobby.

[Robin Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pictures were beautiful in this book and I loved that it was stated whether or not they are pet friendly. I have a cat who likes to nibble on my plants!

I also appreciated a few pictures of different kinds of suffering leaves with remedies of how to help them. This would be a great book to have on hand.

[Bailey Van Vlack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information

Good information! I read this on my laptop since my kindle doesn’t have color and it was nice that way! I think buying this book would be better so I can mark the plants I have and want etc. I wish there was more inforamtion about the plants like fertilizer needs, common problems, common pest per plant.

[Juliana Es · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a new plant parent, I found this book easy to read, and its tips easy to follow. I love that the author divided the selected houseplants into three main categories: low maintenance, medium maintenance, and high maintenance. Her tips on light and humidity are also very useful.

[Mary Kay Wooten · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Must for Beginners

Great book for house plant beginners. Guides you through best selections for your home, care guidelines (do',s & don'ts, planting recommendations, location, feeding & watering), & idea of costs. I believe it will help my black thumb to a green one.

[Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sooo readable. Highlights plants for placing in a home. Information on pet-friendly and not pet-friendly plants are front and center so you can skip what won't work around your pets. Basic care instructions are concise and easy to follow.

[Kristi Starmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

easy for beginners

Really like how this book was set up. Easy way to begin learning about plants and how to care for them. Each plants on its own telling the key tips you would need to know in order to have success.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this! Great info. I liked the specific plant examples for care.

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

~ 3.5 ~

[Monique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy read and learned about plants.

[jen hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative!

Excellent book, up to date with a lot of the newest plants. Excellent resource for anyone who likes plants whether a brown thumb or a green thumb!

[\\Patti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read, and great for those who are new to houseplants. This helped me identify the correct spaces for certain plants within my home.

[luckykarmatx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fair starting point, but it didn't have everything that I needed. I got a few good takeaways from this book, but it isn't a complete reference.

[Christine Watterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great guide

I enjoyed this book; provided good summaries of various plants and gave tips on how best to care for them.

[Renée · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and beautiful pictures

[Kels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this one. Great info, great photos!

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good info for beginners like me, but I wish there had been more and better photos.

[Lisa M. Boch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely for absolute beginners

I love the photos and the information pages of low, medium, and high maintenance plants but the rest didn’t really teach me anything new.

[Chelsea Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

helpful

Resourceful and easy to read. I already have houseplants, and this has helped to understand more from feeding to other care.

[Cheriwinkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, easy to use guidebook for your houseplants.

[Mandy J. Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty basic. Not as helpful as I had hoped. More informative than practical, step by step care.

[ash (mymodernrenaissance) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This basically just added a bunch of plants to my wish list.