The Complete Houseplant Survival Manual: Essential Know-How for Keeping (Not Killing) More Than 160 Indoor Plants

No complaints..

Doesn’t cover many different houseplants but quite comprehensive nonetheless. Glad I made this purchase and has been quite handy.

Overall, this is a worthwhile book with plenty of good information on plant care, propagation, repotting, soil types and most everything else a houseplant enthusiast would want to know. The photos give a good representation of each plant featured.One criticism is that typically only one representative plant of each genus covered is shown and specifically detailed in the text, so if the reader does not appreciate that particular representative, he or she would not know to look at other plants in that genus, which could be more pleasing to the reader's taste.A second point is that after I bought this book I purchased The House Plant Expert by D.G. Hessayon. This is an older book that nevertheless covers more plants and also fixes my previous criticism; there are lots more plants pictured.I would note that generally speaking I do not believe in hard and fast rules for taking care of specific plants. For anyone new to houseplants, there are bound to be failures and Pleasant's book will tell the reader what things to look for to solve plant problems, but trial and error is the best teacher. I also suggest The New Plant Parent by Darryl Cheng for explanation of the relationship between light, temperature and watering.

This has been such a useful book on my houseplant journey. I have never been someone who could keep plants alive but suddenly at age 32 a switch went off and I am now a plant person.I am sure all of this information is available in some form online but it is so nice to have everything easily accessible in the same format for each plant and in bullet points.This book is pretty much a basic care encyclopedia. It has a lot of general plant care information including how to propagate all different kinds of plants to help you start your plant army. It also breaks down information by plant species to give more specifics on care.The information makes it super simple to make sure you are giving your new plat friend enough water, light, fertilizer, and humidity. It has what soil is best for each plant and tips for how to troubleshoot what is wrong with your plant.I reach for this book whenever I bring a new plant home and it has made me much more confident in my crazy plant lady adventure.

I am not particularly fond of house plants. I have however received over the years a fair number of them, and have bought some myself, because my wife likes them.In my situation, I feel like I have received a lot of good tips about plants to make me appreciate them more and care for them better.I now understand better what types of soil to use (apparently there are 6 common types of soil), why/how to repot, how to water, and where to place plants. Another weird thing thay I never understood, namely the trimming of plants, is explained well here. Plants are apparently not like people. You can cut away large portions of them and they dont't mind, or even enjoy it.Another magical part that I didn't think possible was plant propagation. In short and rough words, you can apparently cut away parts of the plant, and make a new plant out of that. This works for almost all plants. Who would have guessed? :DThis book contains sections that help you identify your plants. If so, identification is harder if you're reading this on a kindle device. To make up for this, look up the plant classes on the internet, and you'll be fine.I do recommend this book to whoever likes house plants, but people who are only trying to not kill their plants (like myself) can also benefit a lot from this :p

I was so excited to get this book, and thought that it would be so helpful to me in taking care of the plants that I already had and also to help me to buy new plants. My first disappointment was that very few of the plants that I already owned seemed to be in the book. I don't have unusual house plants, just things that I have found at pretty standard stores. I was disappointed, but decided that I would go the other way around - I would choose plants that were in the book, and then go to the nursery to buy those. I chose about 30 plants out of the book as options for things to buy, but to my surprise the nursery only had a few of those. I don't know if the problem is that there are just too many houseplants for a book like this to be useful, or what.As far as content for the plants that are covered, I would give the book four stars. It's pretty good and pretty well organized. It includes information about watering and sun as well as troubleshooting for common problems (though again, the problems that I tend to have with my houseplants are often not listed). It lists ideal temperature ranges for each plant, but I wish that it also listed the range that the plants can tolerate. I don't heat my house very warm in the winter time, so I was really hoping that the book could help me to choose some plants that could make it through the winter at my house, but it doesn't. For example, I know from experience that jade plants can tolerate temperature extremes fairly well - they do fine at least as low as 45 degrees and also in the heat during the summer. But the book lists the temperature range for jades as "average room temperatures (65-75 degrees F)". That's helpful if you're trying to decide how warm to heat or cool your house in order to best suit your houseplants, but it's not that helpful if you're trying to decide which plants to buy based on the temperature in your house.I love the title of this book, I'm just disappointed that I didn't like the contents more too.

This book arrived in perfect condition and the content is very thorough. I bought this for a Christmas gift. The recipient said they love it and it is just what they wanted.

Good information about the plants it does cover but I have some quite common ones that are not

Lots of pictures to identify your plants

This book offered many useful tips. I thought I knew a lot already as I always research my plants on line. Loved the trouble shooting section. Well worth the money.

I love this book! Exactly what I was looking for. It has all my houseplants in it (I have over 50, but there are 160) and it tells you everything you need to know! If you’re a houseplant lover, this book is exactly what you’re looking for!

This is a very informative book. I am quite happy with it.