How to Houseplant: A Beginner's Guide to Making and Keeping Plant Friends

by Heather Rodino

In this beginner’s guide to indoor gardening, you’ll learn how to care for fifty of the most popular houseplants.Houseplants are more popular than as expert writer and gardening enthusiast Heather Rodino notes, “plants have demonstrated therapeutic value, clean the air, and are an affordable way of decorating, adding beauty to your home, and making even the smallest rented space feel like your own.” She offers a lighthearted, colorfully illustrated overview of caring for your indoor garden, profiling fifty of the most popular houseplants, from the Boston fern and the fiddle-leaf fig to the moth orchid. Her accessible advice on handling pests and diseases, troubleshooting problems, and assessing your growing conditions, will give novices the confidence they need to begin nurturing their own collection. Includes tips and lists detailing everything from which plants are pet-friendly to the top five plants for frequent travelers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gardening, Plants, Nature, Reference, Crafts, Adult

258 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 2, 2019

About the author

Heather Rodino is a freelance editor and writer. She lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Same generic advice you get on the tag of a new plant: “This is a ___ type of plant. Water it, but not too much. Give it bright indirect light.” That’s not s how-to, it’s just directions.

[bunnii ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has made me decide my next plant will be a Chinese Money Plant! :3


Heather did such a great job writing the witty information in How to Houseplant. I learned everything I needed and more. The pictures associated with the information in this book really helped too. I understood all of the pests and diseases to look for on plants, and I am fairly certain I will not kill plants nearly as quickly as I have before.

I highly recommend this book to anyone just starting to collect a few leafy friends!

[Betsy Scherer · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOL when you're the only rater/reviewer on Goodreads... This is super cute - would be a fantastic gift for a plant-loving friend. I wish she had more plants included in her directory though - a few of my houseplants weren't included so it wasn't as comprehensive as I was hoping. I found the section on what to do with sick plants and how to identify the most helpful - pretty sure my christmas cactus is suffering from root rot!

[Jody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit, I finished a book. It's been a minute.

As a recent addition to the crazy plant person brigade, this is a great starting point for houseplants in general, as well as individual care for a bunch of specific plants. I learned stuff. What more can you ask?

[Allison McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro for anyone new to indoor plants! I appreciate that she gives details about how to care for the plants but it never feels overwhelming. As someone new to plants, it was helpful to see which plants are easier to care for and which have very specific needs. It will definitely help me decide which plants I could realistically care for.

[Kailyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great guide to caring for a variety of houseplants while also providing profiles for both well-known and unique plants.

[Sadie]

A good guide for those who are interested in keeping plants

[Fern Buller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of great info and tips for the good natured but clueless plant parent such as myself!

[Amy Brown (amylikestoreadalot) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great little book to keep nearby if you are new to growing houseplants, like me. Chock full of info, I checked out of the library but I need to buy my own copy!

[Helle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute and quick read that came as a gift. It offers a really basic introduction to growing an indoor garden. I'd recommend this to anyone getting started with house plants, as it covers many of the common varieties. I'm pretty good with plants, but this is a great book to loan out or reference in a pinch.

[Lien Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is such a great book for a beginner plant mama like myself. I enjoyed learning more about the plants that I have and what I can do to improve their living space as well as plants that are now on my wishlist! Would recommend for a beginner or not. a great reference guide!

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great little powerhouse for those of us who've accumulated random houseplants. Unlike Betsy, three of my four were in here. If you buy tiny IKEA plants or have friends who give you spider plant offshoots, this is your book!

I google plant minutiae a lot and sites always seem to contradict each other - frustrating! This concisely gives all the info I needed to pot, repot, situate (wtf is indirect light), and propagate. The artwork and photos are attractive and helped me ID one of my plants whose name I always forget. Ive only had it from the library for 24 hours and am thinking about getting one to reference and never google plant stuff again!

[Rev · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 rounded down, just for a little variety in my ratings of house plant books recently.

The information was easy to digest and well articulated so that even a newbie like me could understand what was being said. There's even a section for suggestions for pet-safe houseplants, which is something I've been kind of struggling with. I have a cat and eventually want to get a dog, and I'm trying to figure out plants I could get that won't be toxic to them. This book offered some suggestions that I'm going to look into.

Other than that, it covers what needs to be covered. And I appreciated the pictures of common pests, because I've been finding it difficult to actually find good pictures of common pests and molds that can occur on houseplants. I check mine religiously so that I can prevent outbreaks from happening but I didn't know about some of the molds listed in this book.

Good resource, especially for a beginner.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a new obsession. It's house plants. I don't have a green thumb at all. However, I've been wanting a philodendron or a pothos since my dad always had them growing up and I remember them being so pretty.

It started with a pothos. Then progressed to a china doll and a janet craig, and now a mini kalanchoe, lace aloe, and snake plant round up the group. A golden barrel cactus didn't make it — at no fault of mine, though!

A friend gifted me this book when I was only a couple plants in, and it's been a great tool to a beginner like me. It covers a lot of the basics . . . window exposure, watering requirements, most common "health" problems for plants, among other things. Then there's about two dozen of the most common plants and details about each one, including their light requirements, how often to water, etc.

I didn't learn anything about the plants I have that I didn't already learn from Google but it's nice to have it on hand to look through. I also found a handful of other plants I want, too! Of course I like the plants that I can't kill, very minimum requirements.

If you're new to house plants and get overwhelmed easily . . . this is a great start! It's easy to read, broken down into categories, and each plant has its own chapter.

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually read everything up until the suggested plants section, which I plan on going back to when I am ready to dive deeper. The book was great and made me feel better and confident about my abilities to own and take care of houseplants. The author's encouragement and sympathy regarding plants not thriving is important, and encourages starting over and taking your time.

I checked this out from my library, but I plan on purchasing it in the future so I can I have a guide on which plants work best for me.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has the usual sections on watering, soil, lighting, potting, plant problems, etc. in the first section. The second section has plant profiles for about fifty plants that has a short description of the plant and then tells you how to make friends with it. It details the type of soil to use, light, water and humidity, temperature, size, bugs and disease, and other tips. I like the author’s humorous writing style and I found this to be a quick, light read about how to care for plants.

[sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had absolutely no idea how to care for plants or even where to begin. This book was a great intro to all you need to know about houseplants! There’s even a detailed guide to common houseplants which has helped me care for my aloe plant and has helped me decide which ones I should buy next based off of my lifestyle and living situation.

[Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a neat little book for a new plant parent. The bulk of the book is filled with more plant profiles than other useful information on keeping houseplants, but those profiles are of some common houseplants. So you will likely find what you are looking for and then find more specific information in that particular profile. This is definitely a good book for a beginner.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this and I learned a lot! Like those little white balls in potting soil that I thought looked gross before are really heated volcanic glass used for aeration! It definitely inspired me to do some maintenance on my mom’s houseplants. Once I’m working again, I’m going to pick up a hard copy of this book for myself.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful guide to plant care featuring many easy to find species. Detailed care advice is practical and easy to understand, though I disagree with the idea that lady slipper orchids are a beginner orchid. It's nice to see non moth orchids included in a book like this, but where I am, they are exceedingly expensive and not something a beginner should tackle

[Fi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most helpful beginner houseplant book I’ve read so far! I found tips for caring for the succulents that I already own, as well as for plants that I am interested in getting someday. I especially appreciate that it covers plants that are toxic to pets, and the different kinds of lighting that plants thrive in. Nice!

[Sarah McClymont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to undetstand and pretty book. I really want to learn how to keep my plants alive and I found this book so easy to understand and learnt quite a few things from. It is quite short but it is good to start with. It also contains plant profiles which will be good as references to plants I have.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very quick read (one sitting), yet briefly skims the surface of a multitude of house planting tips, do's and dont's. Would recommend for someone who wants to boost general knowledge without reading very far in depth.

[Alisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from my local library in an effort to learn more about house plants. I love how beautiful the hard cover is and want to buy a copy for personal use. I feel like I learned more about house plants and now feel more prepared to start my own collection.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cute guide to houseplants for beginners. It covered the most common selections, as well as a few I hadn't heard of or seen in online lists. I enjoyed the initial paragraph about each plant that gave a few interesting factoids in addition to the light, soil, and water requirements.

[automidori · Rating 4 out of 5]

The photographs are not those I would spend more seconds on. Nevertheless, the content I find beneficial for me. I like the style, format, of writing. It also makes it easy for me to return to a certain plant, or a certain topic e.g. soil, light, water, etc of a plant.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good basic start to raising houseplants. I like the clear pictures of plants problems to help diagnose my own. A short encyclopedia of 50 plants is enough to get started, but inevitably I want more. Even with my tiny collection, a few don't have entries in this book.

[Supriya Ghosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are keen to know about house plants, and not kill them, this is a good book. It tells you how to make friends with them, the bugs that kill them, watering, potting soils, and gives you enough confidence to have a conversation with anyone who is knowledgeable about plants.

[Aleksey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Неплохой справочник по комнатный растениям. Фотографии, условия содержания. Есть подборка растений, безопасных для котиков.

Раздел с рекомендациями по уходу, проблемам и болезням совсем небольшой, и, к сожалению, в русском издании переведен автопереводом. Очень сложно читать.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

finished in a day because a) a quick and thorough read and b) ITS SO CUTE

i learned so much!