INSPIRED HOUSEPLANT: Transform Your Home with Indoor Plants

Subtitled 'From Kokedama to Terrariums and Water Gardens to Edibles', this book opens up a world beyond the modest kitchen-window Spider Plant. A basics section includes "Prune your way to happiness" and "Conquer your watering fears". Potting, cutting, trimming are all covered in a no-nonsense style with diagrams. "Fertilizer is a gateway drug", warns the author, and you should not succumb to coercive marketing techniques designed, as with humans, to get your plants hooked. The planting guide is divided into desert, temperate, tropical and aquatic. Among desert plants, a palm is graceful to look at and a good air purifier, but you need to be careful about their light needs. The spiky snake plant just wants to be left alone and is a good choice for bedrooms as it gives off oxygen at night. Ferns also present no care difficulties, though "they do like a bit of attention". Among tropical plants the Citrus with its colourful fruit lends an "Italian Riviera kind of vibe", while aquatic plants include Marimo or moss balls which sink or float in water, with the oldest recorded specimens over 100 years old. A chapter of Plant Projects includes methods of display and culture, including terrariums, water gardens, hanging and vertical gardens and the kitchen garden. The author gives instructions for creating a tropical terrarium in a bell jar, easily ordered online, and accompanied by photos of every stage. A Hanging Air Plant Globe or Underwater Landscape are attractive projects, and the Kitchen Garden section shows how you can grow garlic or carrots indoors. Finally there is Plant Style, with a "mid-century" look taking the stage as a large cheese plant overhangs your Scandinavian chair. A beautifully produced book, clear, concise, with colour photos on every double spread. 196pp.