Cover Image: The Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing House Plants

The Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing House Plants

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Member Reviews

I really enjoyed this book! As someone with a limit to how many houseplants I can maintain at one time, this was helpful. The artwork of this title is fresh and fun! I wish that there were more projects. I believe this book will help gardeners of all level and abilities with growing. The color schemes used were bright and fresh.

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An interesting light read for anyone looking to build up knowledge around common houseplants. A nice reference book to have around the house when your plants are looking a little worse for wear!

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This is a massive book, filled with gardening information, photographs and beautiful drawings. This book will keep anyone who want to grow houseplants entertained for a very long time, with lots of information about growing, propagation and details about different plants to grow indoors. There are lots of information about how to grow what indoors. There are also some wonderful ways to display these wonderful plants.
A very interesting and helpful book which one can dip into for information or just to dream.

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Very informative for both budding plant growers and horticultural enthusiasts alike. Written beautifully with language as floral as its subject matter, the Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing House Plants is an addition to a horticultural library you don't want to miss.

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I liked this one as far as gardening books go... it was informational, had images, and the voice was not snobby or intimidating.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Another of those wonderful Kew Gardener's Guides, this one focuses on houseplants and their versatility and beauty in our homes. Again, practical and useful, this is a great plant guide.

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The Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing House Plants is a guide to keeping houseplants healthy and thriving at home. Released 7th March 2019 by Quarto on their White Lion imprint, it's 144 pages and available in ebook and hardcover format.

Whenever gardeners think about inspiration and knowledge on a worldwide scale, the Kew gardens are at the very top of a very short list. They've been going strong for almost 260 years at this point. This book includes an herbal compendium of culture and care info for more than 70 individual houseplants along with several attractive plantings arranged as projects.

Worth noting: this guide is written primarily with gardeners in the British Isles in mind, so some of the common names will be different for readers in other areas of the world. All of the plants in the individual plant listings have their proper genus and species information, so it's not a problem to be sure of a correct ID. The ebook version also has an interactive table of contents which is very handy.

Much of the photography is from stock photos, but all of the project photos are purpose made for this edition. The culture information is straightforward and peppered with good tips and tricks for encouraging the best performance from all of your plants (and getting the best results with difficult or finicky plants).

Four stars. Well written and full of attractive photography.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

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As a novice with a track record of not having greenfingers this was an ideal book to read. It is clearly written, beautiful photos to inspire and gives an insight to what you need to know to keep houseplants happy.

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This is a really useful book - full of pictures and illustrations, but also a lot of tips and tricks on how to take care of all kinds of plants. It also has a few DIY projects for displaying your plants.

It was a great read.

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I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review purposes. Thank you!

A nice primer on how to grow indoor plants. It contains valuable information on how to grow plants generally and on how to care for specific types of plants. There are also ideas on how to arrange your plants for more beauty. The book might be a bit on the basic side sometimes, but it nevertheless helped me to identify one of my new plants, so kudos for that. Recommended for those in need of a good reference book on plants.

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A helpful book with advice for growing houseplants. It's not a particularly deep dive into the subject, but does follow its own interesting take by focusing on sorting plants into their natural habitats: for instance, if you want ferns, try to recreate a dim, humid forest floor, while succulents do well with baking heat and bright sunshine.

The Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing House Plants opens with general advice on how to care for any houseplant, covering the expected topics of light, soil (including several recipes for differing compost mixes), water, repotting, propagation, and so on. The majority of the book covers 77 individual houseplant species. Each one gets a small paragraph describing its natural habitat, then information on how and where to grow it indoors. Interspersed with this are several "projects", recommendations on how to group and display multiple plants. The book covers both common houseplants (peace lily, spider plant, philodendron) and more unusual ones (black aeonium, pineapple, moonstone). The biggest selling point of The Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing House Plants is that every single plant is illustrated, usually with both photographs and Kew Gardens's famous botanical illustrations. It would make a great coffee table book.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2790033820

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Absolutely stunning illustrations in this for all sorts of different kinds of houseplants! Lots of good info and would be a good addition to any houseplant enthusiasts shelf..

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Just a Few Words:  I don't review many "instructional" books, but what can I say...I'm a plant lover :)   Let us begin...

The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing House Plants by Kay Maguire and Kew Botanical Gardens is a helpful guide to house plants.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the published by Quarto Publishing Group (White Lion Publishing), and of course the authors, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis:
Basically this is an illustrated guide for indoor plant lovers.

It includes information on over 70 indoor plants, and shows you where they should be placed in a home, and how to make sure you are watering enough, and transplanting them when needed.

As well, there is information on compost, and cleaning, and cuttings, and feeding…and the information goes on.

Included are cacti, succulents, bromeliads,  air plants, foliage house plants, flowering house plants, and house plants for scent and air freshening.


My Opinions:
I am impressed. The amount of straight-forward information this book provides is amazing.

The introduction alone is worth the price of this book. It covered everything that a beginner to a seasoned veteran of house plants needs to know, or be reminded of. From making sure the plant you just purchased is placed in the proper place/position in your house, to making sure you use the proper soil when re-planting. The section on propagation includes which plants should use which method.

Once you hit the actual “Plants” Section, it will tell you the temperature, type of light, water, where to grow, how to grow, and a “tip”. Included is a sketch or picture of the plant. The pictures are really good. (Remember to read this book on your computer or a colour e-reader/tablet).

What I found really interesting, is that although the common names may differ between North America and Britain, the plants are the same, and so is the care.

What more can you ask…. Well, I guess more plants…

Great book….would make a wonderful gift.

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Home gardeners from novice to expert will appreciate this concise volume of advice for growing and nurturing houseplants. Includes general instructions and specific details for different types of plants, from succulents to ferns and more. Lots of color photographs and illustrations.

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I really liked the inclusion of carnivorous plants in houseplants, especially some outside of the usual venus fly trap. The information given for each plant was informative, and I liked some of the trivia knowledge about the plants that was included. Some of the pet toxicity warnings were lacking, and I'd advise pet owners to double check before going simply on the advice of this book. Some warning are included, but not everything I know to be non-pet safe, and probably some I don't. The entries on peperomias didn't really include what a varied family it is, and people may miss some truly interesting plants if they don't like the blander selection chosen for the book. I liked the various projects included in the book, especially again the inclusion of a variety of carnivorous plants. This is a good handbook to keep next to your plants, or to browse through to see if you see a new favourite, but the entries are short, and miss out on including more pictures of interesting specimens. This is a good starting point, but more research is probably needed if you choose a plant from here about toxicity or anything beyond basic care.

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A beautifully crafted book with easy-to-follow instructions to creating one's own garden of house plants. There's a good mix of photographs that provide a lovely visual to explanations. It also provides lots of inspiration on how to organize and display your plants.

It provides detailed advice and explanation to things like propagation and care. As an aspiring gardener I found the information and tips very useful. It even tells you which types of propagation are most effective for which plants. Not only that, it provides in-depth analysis on each plant and which ones are suitable to given conditions. I learned so much about plant care and creating optimal environments for certain plants.

The book was a joy to read. With the mix of lovely aesthetics to useful tips and tricks, The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing House Plants introduces newcomers to the world of growing plants.

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I'm not fond of the unusual organization of this reference book. It begins with a brief overview of houseplant cultivation, but it's so general as to not really be useful. I will say the propagation section of this overview is quite good. Then, there's a section that seems to focus on 4 different houseplants, but it's not immediately clear as to why those four are segregated into this first section. The majority of the remainder of the book is divided into "projects" that focus on a theme of some sort (e.g., a hanging garden or growing succulents in a bowl). Each project section contains some photos paired with tips for growing in that format, followed by individual plant profiles. The profiles are very general, with no more than a couple of sentences for each category (where to grow, how to grow, growing tips). And, the projects don't always show how to arrange the plants to get the desired look.

If you are looking for a reference book where you can look up detailed information on growing a particular houseplant, I would not suggest this book. But, if you're looking to start growing houseplants and would like some suggestions for a theme or grouping, then maybe this would be a useful book.

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Excellent recource, highly recommended for home gardeners. I will be buying my own physical copy for reference.

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I enjoyed so much about this book, and would expect nothing less from Kew! What a great mix of advice not only on propagation but on how to design personal space around and for plants.

From succulents and air plants to ferns and other tropical lovelies, the reader gets a whole range of care tips to keep their plant babies healthy and strong.

What I loved most was seeing what I thought to be rare and beautiful plants that I never thought I could grow at home. Read this book and you'll be set with caring for your own incredible botanical wonders!

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The Kew Royal Botanic Gardens are world famous and, with large portions of their gardens indoors, there isn’t a better authority to guide a reader on how to get house plants growing. This book is easy-to-follow and easy-to-implement, jampacked with great ideas of how to create green spaces in the home as well as keep them alive. I found the index of plants that clean the air particularly helpful! Several of the plants recommended for the indoors are ones that I would have been hesitant to try but look forward to welcoming in. My only disappointment was it ended too soon, I wish they had carried onto some of the more exotic plants and elaborate executions which they implement merely for interest’s sake.

If you are looking to bring the outside in, I highly recommend you pick up a copy! It’s a four out of five on the en-JOY-ment scale!

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