Simon & Schuster's Guide to House Plants

Rating:
Summary: Great book, the first I got as a brown-thumb!
Review: +AH4-Yes you read it right, I'm a former brown-thumb, never had any luck with plants. Eventually I learned they key, patience, practice and a good identifying and how-to book or two. If I can do it, then anyone can and this book is great, it details each plant in full color with care, propagation, species, family, description, varieties and possible pests and diseases each particular plant is prone to. The nice thing it that it is a small pocket-sized book that you can flip through easily or take+AH4-+AH4- to the nursery or home improvement store with you, no searching through tons of verbage, it's right there. My copy is quite tagged and dog-eared! Since the common and folk names are given and indexed it's so easy to find a plant you don't know the official name for. The pictures are wonderful for those times you are given or buy a plant with no identifying markers to know what it is. I have identified and learned to care for quite a few "mystery plants" by finding them using just the+AH4-+AH4- pictures in this book. My plants all look great and this is the only book I use since it has it all, from start to finish, simply and concisely. A great guide overall, it may not have absolutely every houseplant under the sun (or window) but it has a lot, all the popular and readily-available ones and more than I will likely ever have.+AH4-

Rating:
Summary: More Entertaining Than Actually Useful
Review: There is a lot to like about this book, which offers a listing of 240 plants along with photographs, descriptions, and needs of each--all in a compact size. Even so, I would warn users not to think of it as a houseplant Bible: its descriptions can be misleading and it includes a host plants unsuitable for use as houseplants.

I was quite shocked, for example, to find Nerium Oleander listed as a houseplant. Repeat after me: I will NOT bring Oleander, as either a potted plant or as cut flowers, into the house. Not only is the plant incredibly toxic from flower to root, in a fire it also gives off a deadly gas. If you must have Oleander, plant it outside, away from the house, and where leaf-chewing pets and children will not encounter it.

The text also offers such plants as Coleus, Century Plant, Datura (also known as Angel Trumpet), Gardenia, Passion Flower, and Sago Palm, as houseplants. Although these are not as dramatically unsuitable as houseplants as Oleander, I cannot imagine any one growing them in a casual indoor setting, and the same is true of many other listings. On occasion I also found the text contradictory to what I find in practice, with Coleus a case in point; the text describes it as shade-loving, but I have always planted it in full sun, where it thrives as long as it receives frequent watering.

Most of the photographs included are typical of the varieties listed, but as others have noted it does seem the authors have had difficulty finding good specimens of each. I have rarely seen a more pitiful looking Jade Plant, and while I have grown many a Datura I have never seen one as leafless and spindly as the one presented here. Still, the photographs are indicative; even when the specimen is poor, you should be able to recognize the plant when you encounter it in real life.

Final thought: pretty pictures, interesting text, but unless you actually have a greenhouse or are already very experienced with houseplants, you'll want to take it all with a grain of salt.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: More Entertaining Than Actually Useful
Review: There is a lot to like about this book, which offers a listing of 240 plants along with photographs, descriptions, and needs of each--all in a compact size. Even so, I would warn users not to think of it as a houseplant Bible: its descriptions can be misleading and it includes a host plants unsuitable for use as houseplants.

I was quite shocked, for example, to find Nerium Oleander listed as a houseplant. Repeat after me: I will NOT bring Oleander, as either a potted plant or as cut flowers, into the house. Not only is the plant incredibly toxic from flower to root, in a fire it also gives off a deadly gas. If you must have Oleander, plant it outside, away from the house, and where leaf-chewing pets and children will not encounter it.

The text also offers such plants as Coleus, Century Plant, Datura (also known as Angel Trumpet), Gardenia, Passion Flower, and Sago Palm, as houseplants. Although these are not as dramatically unsuitable as houseplants as Oleander, I cannot imagine any one growing them in a casual indoor setting, and the same is true of many other listings. On occasion I also found the text contradictory to what I find in practice, with Coleus a case in point; the text describes it as shade-loving, but I have always planted it in full sun, where it thrives as long as it receives frequent watering.

Most of the photographs included are typical of the varieties listed, but as others have noted it does seem the authors have had difficulty finding good specimens of each. I have rarely seen a more pitiful looking Jade Plant, and while I have grown many a Datura I have never seen one as leafless and spindly as the one presented here. Still, the photographs are indicative; even when the specimen is poor, you should be able to recognize the plant when you encounter it in real life.

Final thought: pretty pictures, interesting text, but unless you actually have a greenhouse or are already very experienced with houseplants, you'll want to take it all with a grain of salt.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Reasonable, but not special.
Review: This book gets the job done, but it does not stand out in my mind as being particularly better than a half-dozen other books on the same subject. The information is accurate, and the photography is well done, and some supplemental information on plant propagation, disease recognition, arrangement, etc. has been included at the front. The index includes common as well as scientific names, and there is a glossary of terms.

However, they seem to have had some trouble geting truly nice specimens in some cases (yes, that is an opinion). Pictures included scrawny plants (crassula arborescens; begonia coccinea hybrid), and occasionally discolored plants (sparmania africana; clerodenum thomsonae) I also feel that they have "padded" their plate count somewhat by including plants that would not normally be included in a houseplant book (again, this is opinion). Impatients and tulips come to mind.

Neither of these complaints detract from the information provided, nor are they at a level that in any way interferes with the usefulness of the book as a general identification guide.

Rating:
Summary: Reasonable, but not special.
Review: This book gets the job done, but it does not stand out in my mind as being particularly better than a half-dozen other books on the same subject. The information is accurate, and the photography is well done, and some supplemental information on plant propagation, disease recognition, arrangement, etc. has been included at the front. The index includes common as well as scientific names, and there is a glossary of terms.

However, they seem to have had some trouble geting truly nice specimens in some cases (yes, that is an opinion). Pictures included scrawny plants (crassula arborescens; begonia coccinea hybrid), and occasionally discolored plants (sparmania africana; clerodenum thomsonae) I also feel that they have "padded" their plate count somewhat by including plants that would not normally be included in a houseplant book (again, this is opinion). Impatients and tulips come to mind.

Neither of these complaints detract from the information provided, nor are they at a level that in any way interferes with the usefulness of the book as a general identification guide.

Rating:
Summary: Small can be handy, but more difficult to read.
Review: This book is designed to be small and handy to use. It would be especially good if you want to take it with you when houseplant shopping. The book does give you a moderate amount of information on each plant. I didn't really care for the little symbols on the side. I prefered reading the description. I found because of the small size the print is also small and the information is run together which makes it more difficult to read.
The book uses the word "fortnight" and "fortnightly" a lot! It also puts the inches and degrees in parenthesis, not my preference.
If you are an experienced houseplant person and have several books this book doesn't add any new information. If you are a beginner and want a handy book, this is a good book. There are books that are equally as good and eaiser to read, but they are larger books.

Rating:
Summary: Small can be handy, but more difficult to read.
Review: This book is designed to be small and handy to use. It would be especially good if you want to take it with you when houseplant shopping. The book does give you a moderate amount of information on each plant. I didn't really care for the little symbols on the side. I prefered reading the description. I found because of the small size the print is also small and the information is run together which makes it more difficult to read.
The book uses the word "fortnight" and "fortnightly" a lot! It also puts the inches and degrees in parenthesis, not my preference.
If you are an experienced houseplant person and have several books this book doesn't add any new information. If you are a beginner and want a handy book, this is a good book. There are books that are equally as good and eaiser to read, but they are larger books.