The Unexpected Houseplant

June 18, 2012
For those who have tired of spider plants and cactus, garden writer Martin (The New Terrarium) suggests a year’s worth of new options. She begins her tour in autumn (the start of the indoor gardener’s year) and offers dozens of tempting suggestions. There are familiar bulbs and unexpected conifers, fruiting trees, and carnivorous plants. Each plant listing includes a photograph and an information box describing its flower, foliage, cultivation requirements, and potential problems. What really sets this apart from other reference guides are Martin’s imaginative choices. She dares readers to invite conifer trees and summer coleus inside for the winter and explains how to help the plants thrive there. She lures readers beyond the Christmas poinsettia to the whimsical, Dr. Seussian charm of a holiday Echeveria. She offers fruit, fragrance, foliage, and flower. Clineff’s full-color photographs provide plenty of inspiration for the home gardener and decorator. This is an imaginative guide to bringing the delights of the garden indoors.

June 15, 2012

For her 15th book, garden writer and plant expert Martin seeks to encourage the indoor plant maven in each of us. With the help of Clineff's eye-catching photos, which depict how correctly chosen plants placed in creative containers can enhance indoor living space, Martin shows how imagination and use of fundamental ground rules for growing and proper placement should result in an indoor horticultural paradise year round. Martin covers over 220 plants, ranging from exotic to conventional, but her unusual plant-container pairings give all of them an artsy flavor. Her text is engaging and personable. Growth requirements, propagation advice, problems, and attributes of plants are outlined. While Martin provides a resource list, she encourages the use of even "lowly" grocery store specimens. She presents planning and work schedules within a framework of the four seasons. VERDICT As the title suggests, this is not a typical facts-only presentation of how to cultivate houseplants. All indoor plant hobbyists in every geographic area will enjoy and learn from this book. Its fresh approach deserves a thumbs-up.--Deborah Anne Broocker, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Dunwoody

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
Subscribing to the belief that, where houseplants are concerned, too much is never enough, unabashed interior-garden-enthusiast Martin extols the virtues of expanding one's indoor horticultural horizons beyond the run-of-the-mill rubber tree or puny grocery store ivy. The sheer variety and staggering range of plant material available to in-home gardeners is rewarding in its versatility and diversity. Outdoor-garden stalwarts, such as ornamental grasses and conifers, can happily coexist with indoor brethren, such as geraniums and cacti. One needs little more than a window and a watering can to transform even the most unconventional corners of a home into a lush extension of the natural world. Season by season, Martin profiles indoor-garden stars: calla lilies in fall, camellias in winter, crotons in summer, carnivorous plants in spring. Accompanied by Clineff's fetching photographs that showcase Martin's artistry in pairing the right plant with the right pot, her conversational and practical care-and-feeding guidance will boost the confidence of even the most black-thumbed houseplant owner. Martin's can-do enthusiasm is infectious, her creativity inspiring.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)