Review: Indispensable books for winter gardening

Review of: The Indestructible Houseplant: 200 Beautiful Plants That Everyone Can Grow
Author: Tovah Martin
Publisher: Timber Press, Inc.
Source: Dallas Public Library
Grade: A

 For every gardener with a case of the midwinter blues, Tovah Martin has a cure. In this case, The Indestructible Houseplant, her compilation of trued and true plants that thrive indoors no matter what the weather. Or how little time the gardener may have to devote to them. Ease of maintenance is a priority.

But these are not just the dreary dusty basics many of us remember all too well. The 25-year-veteran of Logee’s Greenhouses won’t settle for dreary plants, and she doesn’t expect her readers to either. Much as we long for, in her words, “an intimate relationship with something that photosynthesizes,” nobody wants to devote time and window space to anything ugly.

This doesn’t mean Martin neglects some of the well-known basics: aglaonema (Chinese evergreen), ferns, peace lily, pothos, or sansevieria. Rather, she tells (and shows, through pictures by photographer Kindra Clineff) how to elevate such basics with thoughtful containers and companion plants.

The 40-something chapters in the volume’s body, “Gallery of Indestructibles”, are in alphabetic order, from African violet to ZZ plant, allowing us to locate our favorites easily. Most chapters include several varieties, species, even multiple genera, within a single designation, easily bringing the plant total to the 200 promised in the book’s subtitle. 

Love African violets? Consider adding their relatives, the chiritas. Geranium fans can choose between zonals, ivy-leafed, or scented-leafed varieties. Martin’s section on tradescantias includes delightfully-named bridal veil and Moses in a boat, and so on.

Adventurous – maybe even not so adventurous – indoor gardeners will rejoice at being introduced to lesser known plants: medinilla (aka Malaysian grapes) with its “posh plump clusters of peach-pink blossoms”; slipper orchid; snow rose; and more.

 Each chapter in The Indestructible Houseplant opens with a mouth-watering photo, and includes plant descriptions, Martin’s experience with them (including suggestions for containers), and a quick guide to its care (exposure, water requirements, optimum temperatures, soil, water, fertilization and suggested companion plans).

Martin also includes sections on how to include indestructible houseplants into a home’s décor, how to plant, and a brief calendar on what to do when, all written in clear language with more than a dash of humor.

***

Review of: Well-Clad Windowsills: Houseplants for Four Exposures
Author: Tovah Martin
Publisher: Macmillian, Inc.
Grade: A

As might be expected from a 25-year-old veteran of the venerable plant purveyor, Logee’s Greenhouses, Tovah Martin brings plenty of know-how to the topic of which houseplant thrives where in Well-Clad Windowsills: Houseplants for Four Exposures. But no matter which compass direction an indoor gardener’s window face, Martin has a plant for it. Actually, several plants. And not always the obvious ones, either.

The one requirement no respectable plant can live without is light. So, Martin warns, “If you want to succeed without houseplants, select your plant on the basis of its light requirements rather than whether or not it tugs at your heartstrings or matches the upholstery.” Water, temperature and humidity are within the control of indoor gardeners. The orientation of their homes is not.

Want plenty of blooms? Certainly, gardeners with sunny southern windows have their choice of blooming beauties such as geraniums, hibiscus, pentas, and more. But for everyone who despairs of coaxing plants into bloom without benefit of sunny southern windows, Martin offers delightful alternatives. How about angel-wing begonias, jasmines and bulbs to grace an eastern exposure? Or anthuriums, camellias and hoyas for the west? Given only northern windows, we may have to settle for greenery only, but, knowing Martin, it’s greenery with pizzaz. 

No matter what exposures are available, “There’s no reason why windows can’t be cleverly designed and carefully groomed,” Martin writes. “And I hope that growers will begin to ferret out rare houseplants just as they seek sophisticated perennials for their backyards.” 

In addition to suggestions for suitable plants, their requirements in addition to light – watering, temperatures, relative humidity, fertilizing, pruning, and more – and a list of sources, Well-Clad Windowsills is graced with dozens of photographs designed to inspire the indoor gardener. Stylists Sarah Bohorquez, Will Perkins and Geoffrey Martin put her plants in glorious context: trailing, trellised, trained into tall standards or left to grow naturally. And most often, combined in congenial groups of like-minded photosynthesizing companions. 

Admittedly, not all plants will be easy to care for simply because their light requirements are met. (For gardeners whose first concern is ease of maintenance, I recommend Martin’s The Indestructible Houseplant.) But like all her books, Well-Clad Windowsills combines her decades of horticultural experience with clear and enjoyable writing, and plenty of material to foster daydreams about the next gardening adventure.

(For more about and from Tovah Martin, follow her on Facebook at Plantswise by Tovah Martin.)