Houseplants: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Growing, and Caring for Indoor Plants

by Lisa Eldred Steinkopf

Transform your home into a verdant retreat with this information-packed guide to houseplant care, with profiles for over 125 different plants.

Well-chosen, well-cared-for houseplants bring life to a room, both literally and figuratively. They add color, texture, motion, uniqueness, beauty—and they even improve air quality. They also fulfill our need to nurture and care for other living things. In Houseplants, expert grower Lisa Eldred Steinkopf gives you the advice and information you need to confidently bring a plant (or two, or more!) home and find joy in keeping it lush and healthy.

Achieve success with your houseplants by:

Making smart selections: Choose plants that are suited for your space and conditions.

Savvy siting: Where the plant is placed is as important as what it is.

Taking care: Proper maintenance goes far beyond watering; learn how to fertilize, groom, troubleshoot, propagate, and more.

Becoming an educated owner: The book includes 125+ profiles of the most popular, cutting-edge plant species.
Organized by relative ease of care, the plant profiles offer the common and botanical names, light preference, watering guidelines, whether and under what conditions it flowers, its size and growth potential, propagation tips, and available cultivars.

Featuring stunning photography and a modern design, Houseplants is a must-have resource for every houseplant parent.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gardening, Plants, Reference, Nature, How To, Self Help

272 pages, Hardcover

Published October 23, 2017

Reviews

[Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of years ago we realized that with everything my wife and I had done to decorate our home, it was missing plants. Over the years we had both tried tentatively to add plants, and never felt great about our ability to get them to grow and flourish. This time I was more committed. I brought several plants over the period of a year. I paid more attention. I did some quick research on the Internet on the specific plants I had purchased. What I didn’t do is follow my usual approach: read up on the subject and then plan out my approach. When I encountered a few problems, I finally reverted to that traditional approach and began by buying this book. It has been extremely helpful.

The book covers a lot of basics without going into so much depth that I lost my momentum or interest. It has sections on Planting, Watering and Fertilizing, Lighting, Environment, Grooming and Propagation and Problem Solving. I got lots of ideas on ways I could improve the care of our plants, without much more effort, and approaches for trying to overcome some of the problems I had encountered. The many pictures broke up the text and were motivating. The last half of the book provides profiles on specific plants and is broken into three categories: Easy-to-Grow, Moderately Easy-to-Grow and Challenging to Grow. I found these helpful in researching my existing plants and for considering what I might add in the future. The author has some other books, one of which looks like it will be helpful for me, and a blog that I am going to try out. For those like me, amateurs and a bit lost, I highly recommend this book. If you are a pro already, you are already well beyond what this book can offer.

[Sergio Rico · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good general info but not particularly comprehensive. It has a huge section of plant specific info but stays at a very superficial level

[Broken Lifeboat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great info for beginning a plant collection; lovely pictures

[Amanda Knox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steinkopf gives us a thorough compilation of plant-care information. It includes info on various ways to water your plant, triage illnesses, and even manipulate the light in the plant's room. The photos are high quality and I especially appreciate the plant profiles organized by ease of care. I do wish the examples were more varied and that she cited sources where she was trying to dispel "myths," but otherwise I highly recommend this title to anyone interested in expanding or maintaining their houseplant collection, or who simply likes to learn about plants.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice photos and well-laid out.

[Sheryl Normandeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

One glance at the racks in your local garden centre will tell you that indoor gardening is indeed experiencing a resurgence - for everyone's benefit!  There are so many more plant selections available, and not just the succulents and air plants that have been trendy for the past few years.  Looking after houseplants is meditative, nourishing, and just plain enjoyable, but only if you know what you’re doing. 

That’s what Lisa Eldred Steinkopf’s book is for: to help you succeed with your growing endeavours.  In House Plants, Steinkopf (thehouseplantguru.com) thoroughly and precisely covers every detail: soil, water, light, containers, siting, propagation, and troubleshooting pests and diseases.  Her advice is practical and easy to understand, even for those just getting into the hobby – this is a book that will definitely inspire confidence when it comes to keeping houseplants.   Indoor gardeners will appreciate that she even touches briefly on bonsai, topiary, living walls, water plants, and holiday plants, as these somewhat specialty niches become more mainstream.

Of course, it’s truly the more than 125 profiles of houseplants that attracted me most to the book.  I love the fact that individual plants are categorized according to their difficulty of cultivation and maintenance.  From ferns to figs to palms, orchids, and dracaena – it’s all here and each one is beautifully photographed to aid in identification.  Comprehensive, useful, and a delight to pore through, this really is the “complete guide” to houseplants! 

[Paige McNachtan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earlier this year my college roommate and I looked around our house thought we were missing something (it was plants). We got some, and within a month they were all dead. We tried again and the same thing happened. We looked back at our previously attempts at keeping them alive, agreed that they had been pretty disastrous and we thought we needed to change our plant parenting game.

I was able to be introduced to this book thought NetGalley and it was truly a plant care Bible for me.
It had sections on planting, watering, feeding, lighting, and so much more. We got tons of easy tips to level up our plant game without breaking a sweat, and we learned how to tackle the issues we'd been facing.

The best part? The book was loaded with pictures that kept things fun. The second half of it was pure gold, with profiles on different plants neatly sorted into categories like Easy-to-Grow, Kind of Easy-to-Grow, and Challenge Accepted. This helped us figure out our existing plants and dream about all the new leafy pals we could add in the future.

This book is great for plant novices just trying to keep our plant babies alive, but if you are already a plant pro this book is likely not going to teach you anything.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morning tea reading book for me. While it definitely didn't cover every houseplant and everything houseplants, it covered enough to help a beginner along. Had a lot of the more popular houseplants, but not all.

Lots of photos in colour. Each plant came with a little round photo of it at the top. My compliant is, these pictures mostly seemed to be zoomed in so it was really hard to figure out with some of the plants are supposed to look like. Some were zoomed out for you could see the plant, for example the snake plants, but not many. Particularly if they are a flowering plant. Than you only get a close up of the flower. So not great for people who are newer to walking into a store and trying to recognize plants by sight. Not all plants are labelled where I live.

The info provided was pretty basic, short and sweet in places. Author consistently gives you very general lighting needs, soil needs, and watering needs. Every now and then they will recommend a window direction, and sometimes will let you know if the plant flowers (though this is mostly when it is not likely or common place).

[Nan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone new to house plants, this book is useful. It has general information in the front, and then a page-per-plant information in the back. A couple of nits to pick. First, as an experienced (outdoor) gardener, it was jarring the way the individual plant profiles are organized: first grouped by “easy”, “medium”, etc., then by rather fanciful common name. It seemed very random, especially as most common names were totally unfamiliar and don’t seem to be used much in the catalogues I consult. Luckily, there is an index in the back, because I don’t think you could ever learn her ordering system. Second, while there is a lot of luscious photography throughout, some of the small round photos at the top of the profile pages seem to focus in way too tight, and they do not give a sense of what the plant as a whole looks like.

Overall, I’m glad this is on my shelf and it will be consulted again.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice book for someone who wants to dabble in growing and caring for houseplants. The book covers all the necessary things in depth that someone needs to know about growing houseplants: planting, watering and fertilizing, lighting, environment, grooming and propagation, problem solving and a discussion of specialties (like terrariums, etc.). It then goes into plant profiles: easy to grow; easy to medium and more difficult. Each profile has a picture of the plant, its common name, botanical name, light preference, watering needs, flower, size and propagation. Beautiful photographs and easy to understand instructions and terms. A great book for the casual houseplant enthusiast. "In compliance with FTC guidelines, I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads."

[Carla Bayha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michigan has great soil and an abundance of fresh water. It's no surprise that we have an unusual wealth of independent growers and garden centers, including the author's family run Steinkopf Nursery in Farmington Hills. With our freezing winters, most of our year round local nurseries have greenhouses filled with tender perennial or tropical "houseplants." This book guides you through plant selection and maintenance, including the arts of repotting and propagating. Plants are categorized by how difficult they are to grow or keep alive. On the back cover is a ZZ plant (Zamioculcas zamifolia), which I highly recommend if you want a plant that keeps on giving no matter how much you neglect it.

[Jac · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid introduction for people brand new to caring for indoor plants, but the information is largely too basic to be useful for intermediate-level indoor gardeners. It also perpetuates some inaccuracies (pebble trays aren't going to raise ambient humidity by an appreciable amount, as an example) that were disappointing to see in print when they're pretty widely discussed on the internet.

A book about plants has to do something pretty unique to be a better resource than hundreds of forums and millions of websites and this one just wasn't that special. Still, if you're new to plants, this is worth checking out from the library if only for the convenience of having the info in one place.

[Aly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good book for those new to gardening/houseplants. It was informative and includes general care for indoor plants outlined and a brief overview of all the popular houseplants you can get today and how to care for them.

I would not use this book as the only resource for indoor plant care (it's not detailed enough for each of the specific plants needs), but I know that I will be going back to this book more as a quick reference guide as to the plant's general needs.

[Juli Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic, no-nonsense, modern guide to keeping houseplants. I really appreciated Steinkopf's approach, and the information is beautifully organized. The quality of photos (very important when, for example, you are learning to identify plant pests!) is excellent. My only complaint is that I wish that the encyclopedic sections toward the end were more exhaustive and organized alphabetically, rather than by difficulty of care.

[Sadman · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a plant beginner, this book helped demystify so many things that I was doing while relying on online plant care guides. It breaks down the general fundamentals of plant growth in an easy digestible way, and is compiled beautifully with an index of 100s of plant-specific guidelines. A combination of this book and blank plant cards has helped me bring multiple dying plants in my home back to life, and has inspired me to fill up my home with more green friends every chance I get.

[sky 🪐 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me save a few of my plants already and I only JUST got it for Christmas! It's a very easy to understand book, and I appreciate how the plants are separated into easy to grow to challenging categories so I can be aware of what I'm getting myself into when purchasing future plants. It is also very cute and looks so nice next to my other books! Definitely recommend :)

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The information in the book is quite good, unfortunately the guide to individual plants at the end is ruined by some clever graphic designer and stylist who decided to make the images an inch wide circle that often doesn't even show the whole plant. Yeah, I know--white space is a graphic designer's friend. But practical is practical, and isn't that the point of a how-to book?

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a really great book about houseplants. I just wish that it had more pictures. Seriously only a 2-inch picture of each plant?! (some get a full page picture, but only a few). That just isn't good enough.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative! Relies somewhat on the reader’s previous understanding of concepts and terminology, especially around lighting and watering, but otherwise great for a beginner or intermediate plant parent.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great reference book for those new to house plants, as well as for those who may have had house plants for awhile but want to learn more about their plants.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to rate this. This is a reference book, so I just dip into it to look for what I want to know. So far it seems to be pretty useful.

[Mskychick · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4 stars.
I do like the long list of easy to keep houseplants!
I will be checking this out from the library again when I’m ready to get some more houseplants in a few months

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super helpful book with good information and photos. My plants are already happier.

[Max Pietsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference book. Helped me figure I need to repot plants so the roots don't rot, and how to select a new pot for repotting.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, clear info for basic care - I'd like a little more info about where the plants come from, but for a basic plant care book, this one is nice.

[Rain · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little outdated, but still helpful for a beginner.

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sooooo manyyyyyy plantssssss.

Certainly the most thorough of the books on houseplants I've read recently. It has pictures of all the pests and diseases that other authors merely describe. It talks about how to keep plants to manageable sizes, has instructions on different ways of propagating new plants, and has detailed descriptions of what feels like a billion plants if you're reading it right through, which I do not recommend.

I missed the breezy, chatty tone of Tovah Martin but I did appreciate the completeness and the sheer amount of cold hard facts.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Better than other books I've read but can't compare to Darryl Cheng's book.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting and clear, with details about different plants and their care time.