Hi Pete,

Here are two that I find helpful:

Reader's Digest "Success with House Plants", ISBN 0-89577-052-0 copyright 1979. Hardcover book. This one is pretty easy to find in thrift stores or secondhand on line.

Also just found a copy of "Growing Beautiful Houseplants" by Rob Herwig, ISBN 0-8160-4061-3 paperback, copyright 1987. This is also a good reference and has more than 1,000 varieties.

Try eBay or half.com for online inexpensive copies.

Cheers,
Nigell

I second SUCCESS, also " the House Plant Expert"book one and two by Dr. D.G. Hessayon and "Tempting Tropicals" by Ellen Zachos. When you get on Amazon, some books have reviews posted by readers. I buy books everywhere, my biggest collection comes from garage sales and such, but most of them are outdated or use common names that are not so common any more.

Indoor Plant By Halina Heitz ISBN 0812062078.

I've had this book since '97. It was my first "plant" book and I was around your age. It's moved apartments and out of state and back with me. And I read it often. A month doesn't go by without me cracking it open, sometimes I'll pick it up and read the whole book again if there isn't anything on tv or I don't feel like being on the net.

The other day I realized that when I first got this book I marveled at the plants and wished I could find many of them, I laughed when I realized that I had many of the them now or at some point.

I just bought The Houseplant Expert (author - Dr. D.G. Hessayon, ISBN - 0-903505-35-5) yesterday. I've only read through about half of it so far, but I am finding it informative.

A suggestion is to borrow some different books from your local library before buying. I was able to eliminate several from my must-buy list by doing this.

Here is a link that might be useful: The House Plant Expert

Pete, the book you remember could have been The Complete Book of Houseplants by John Evans. ISBN 0-670-85868-4. I love this book! Its a 1993 book, and the cover is white with an African Violet on the cover. I got it used on ebay, and its been so handy - even says at the top of each page how easy or difficult that featured plant is to grow. I agree that the Houseplant Expert is an EXCELLENT book, and I've had it for many years, and its well dog-earred as I've referred to it too many times to count. Like the first one I mentioned, it is pretty straight forward without a lot of extra useless stuff thrown in. Finally, I recently bought Guide to Growing Healthy Houseplants by Miracle-Gro, ISBN 0-696-22146-2, and was very pleasantly surprised. It lists a lot more plants than I thought it would for its size, and you can usually get it at Lowe's or Home Depot. The Success with Houseplants by Reader's Digest, 1979, ISBN 0-89577-052-0, and The Complete Guide to Houseplants also by Reader's Digest (the latter only came out earlier this year) ISBN 0-7621-0634-4 have been invaluable to me. What I can't find in one book, I'm sure to find in another, so I think having several books around really is handy, and it pays off when you can't ID a new plant you just HAD to bring home with you (something I do a little too often!) Tempting Tropicals is the next one I'll be looking for. I just bought Landscaping with Tropical Plants, but haven't read it yet, so can't yet comment on it. Also, as mentioned by another poster, the book reviews on Amazon are great and very helpful in making buying decisions!

Randi

Let's remember Pete's description of the kind of book he wants: LOTS OF PICTURES AND NOT SO MUCH YAKKING!

Anyone know of a good houseplant book that Pete doesn't have to 'like' READ???? LOLolololol!

Thanks to all that replied. I will research all the books that you have recommended and hopefully will purchase soon. Right now if i want to look up a certain plant, i will usually type in the latin name in a search engine and see what comes up. I like using Google's image search, as it helps me make sure that the plant i bought had the right tag on it if the picture look like the plant i bought. Again, thank you for all your suggestions and keep them coming.

Aside from that, i don't know what is with Rhizo's post. s/he obviously didn't read clearly enough what i had originally wrote, and has simply posted on here just to insult me and my form of English. If you have a problem with me, or the way i write out messages, then don't read them and go on another thread to insult the next unsuspecting person. I find your reply to be very unfair and uncalled for, joke or not.

- Pete, 19

I do not know if this is the best but I liked it and it has a white cover.

Complete Houseplant Bible: The Essential Guide to Successful Indoor Gardening
Peter McHoy

Paperback, March 2000
Publisher: Anness Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 0754804690

I must say, years back and many that would be, and BC, before computers that is, I loved books with lots of photos, since descriptions never quite cut it for me, but now of course there are plenty online should you need the photos that aren't included in a particular book, but my favorite for years was "The Complete Book of Houseplants" by Charles Marden Fitch , since it talked about and stressed the actual growing conditions where those many exotic tropical plants originated, so one may appreciate what kind of conditions they need in an indoor environment, and of course other interesting tidbits. Unfortunately, I think that book is long out of print and hard to find used most likely. It also was interesting to the more imaginitive side of my personality, since he described seeing those plants off in their wild homes. Oh to be a modern day "plant explorer" and there are still some adventuresome folks doing that today, to bring us constantly many new wonderful plants from exotic places!!

But I thought that was exactly what he didn't want--too much yakking. I thought Rhizo's post was gently amusing and to the point--he said what he said. Don't be offended when someone takes a bit of a poke at you, plantfreak--we all kid a bit, but I'm sure there was no harm meant there. After awhile, you'll find more and more of interest in the yakking.

Even though I sometimes find some info contradictory about certain plants, when I go to many sources in researching various plants , it seems all that yakking can sometimes add little extra clues to growing some plant , which I'd not considered previously, so it can serve a purpose, though you have to sift through all the extra chit chat!

Pete....I'm sorry that I offended you....my intentions are NEVER,EVER to cause anyone discomfort. I shouldn't tease anyone unless I'm certain that gentle poking won't be entirely misconstrued.

By the way: the ISBN number is the unique number applied to each and every published book. The letters stand for International Standard Book Number.

The very best thing to do, in my opinion, is to Google the plant you are considering buying. There is so much info on the internet, and if your budget is limited as to the number of books you can buy, just Google plants instead! I've found it at least as informative as most of my books!

Randi

Reader's Digest "Success with House Plants" was my first choice also, I'm so glad that the older books still hold a wealth of knowledge. I'd also suggest going to the local library and check out as many books as you can carry home. I always go to the library when I'm looking for books to add to my collection so I know what's in the book before putting out cash for a book I don't like. I also second the used book store, I always find books for $1-4 which would cost 10 times that new.

Hi Pete & Welcome to the Wild & Wacky Wonderful World of Plants!

I too recommend Success w/ Houseplants. It's one of my few home references books & my favorite! It has a good combo of excellent pix & good, relevant very informative text. It's really copmprehensive, it covers ALL the basics really well.

You may not want to read lots, but really, this is all really good stuff. You can only get IDs from the pix; once you know what they are you'll want to give them the best care you can; this book has GREAT coverage of both. The basics of soils, light, watering, fertilizers, all that stuff matters to the care of the plants.

If you can get your hands on this one book, maybe a library or maybe even second hand (tho' when I bought mine in '95 it cost $26). Best plant investment I've ever made, this one book largely covers my roughly 180+ plants really well.

I love my Success with Houseplants, The Houseplant Expert (updated edition) and the Rob Herwig book too. I have two of his, one by HP that has less plants and a big gorgeous one.

Is this the Book????
link:http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780895773494&itm=1 -

BINGO!

It WAS that book! 50 points to shelsob1994 for guessing a book that i have little memory of and for guessing it with such a broad description. Pure genius!

- Pete

P.S If anyone has this book, could you perhaps turn to a pag with color photos of plants and take a picture of it? I know that is all i wil need to be 100% sure that this was the book that i had so long ago.

The book that I just love is a 1980 copy of the houseplant expert by DG Hessayon. Obviously it is not up to date but it has simple instructions and I found it for a couple of bucks at a used book store. I bought my kids the newest edition and I think it cost $20 but it had great pictures in it.

Seems like I may have posted this already-if so parden my spaciness

Just bumping this to se if there are any new books people recommend. What about websites?

I still have the original Houseplant Expert by D.G.Hessayon, from 1982,when I was 14. I should really get an updated edition, it has many outdoor plants like Aucuba japonica listed as a houseplant!

Larry, Aucuba makes a pretty good houseplant, believe it or not. There are several such plants.....Fatsia, Fatshedera, Holly Fern, Sago 'palms', Jasminiums, Ophiopogon, Wax Begonia, coleus, just to name a few. Oh, almost forgot citrus.

Yes it does,but when that book was written it was still fairly new to cultvation I think and people maybe thought it looked exotic. I'd give it a try if I had a cool room, which in modern times I don't. Lavender and ivy is also listed as a houseplant (I had ivy as a kid) but in modern homes they're not recommended

I've started to put together a list of the best Houseplant books you should own - be interested to know what you think and if I've missed any?

I have found that books similar to those you highlighted in the blog you linked to do very little to advance grower's proficiency at growing in containers. Books that provide a working knowledge of A) how plants work (botany/ physiology/ morphology), B) a working knowledge of soil science, C) and an understanding of how to provide for plants' nutritional needs are the types of books that put people on the shortest path to a green thumb. Some easy to understand books that I found invaluable when I was just getting into growing plants in pots:

Botany for Gardeners, 4th edition ~ Brian Capon

Water, Media, and Nutrition for Greenhouse Crops ~ published by Ball

Growing Media (for Ornamental Plants and Turf) ~ Handreck and Black

Plant Production in Containers II ~ Carl Whitcomb PhD

Al

Thank you for sharing those, i'll be sure to take a look.