The Houseplant Basics Book

By Elias Sassoon

Houseplants are meant to bring joy into everyone’s life, and that’s who this collection of articles, originally published on Facebook, are meant to do, bring joy by introducing you to a fascinating world of diverse life forms. I offer a no-frills approach to choosing and keeping indoor plants. My advice covers everything from the ordinary tropical houseplants, to cactus and succulents, bromeliads, and orchids. My approach is a less scientific one. Sure, I know all the common and Latin names of many of our houseplants, as well as the textbook definitions of their origins and cultural needs. But, I’m not writing a textbook here! I won’t bombard readers with facts and figures like other houseplant experts. I go for the commonsense approach. That approach may be a little different. Besides discussing the physical needs of houseplants, I examine their emotional and psychological requirements.

How can this little book help you? If you have problems with your houseplants, maybe want to know what plant is right for your particular environment; desire general information on the best places to acquire houseplants; need information on potting soil and watering practices; or, just like to know where in your home to grow your houseplants, read these chapters and you’ll be helped. My goal is to get everyone involved in growing. Houseplants enrich the most ordinary lives with their exotic appeal and fascinating growth habits.
This book presents a forum for you whether you are an amateur grower or a professional. It will get you thinking and asking the following questions:

(1) What is your favorite houseplant and why?
(2) How do you grow your houseplants, that is, what is your setup like?
(3) Are you an apartment grower, a house grower, or do you have a greenhouse?
(4) What problems do you have growing plants and how have you overcome them?
(5) Do you have any special fertilizers that you use?
(6) Do you have any special remedies to treat insects and fungal attacks?
(7) What kind of pots do you use?
(8) What kind of soil do you use with your houseplants?
(9) Where do you buy your houseplants?

Hopefully, by the time you finish reading, you’ll have more of the answers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elias Sassoon
• Release date: Apr 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476136554

Elias Sassoon

I am a houseplant fanatic and collector. My collection of tropicals, cactus and succulents, african violets and rare bromeliads have been chronicled in the New York Times and New York Newsday. I am also the author of published novels, short story collections, and non-fiction. These include: Brothers of the Four Corners; Sassoon’s Sketches; Headhunter’s On Parade; Hero Bountiful; Jewish Days; Some Arab Souls Dripping; Pig’s Court America; Record of Mutilation; Sassoon’s Friends; Sassoon’s Sketches For A Saturday Afternoon, The Sassoon Society; Costume Parade; The Brilliant Idiot’s Club; Tales Of The Syrian Night; Tales Of Modern Judea; Oriental Cover-up; The American God: A*NOVEL*Tale; Menopausal Musings & Other Stories; Blackened Nights; Sassoon’s Heart Beatings (poetry collection); Sassoon’s Work Burn (poetry collection); Scholastic Carcinogens (poetry collection); Strumming Through Middle Age (poetry collection); An Individual’s Dream (Philosophy); 13 Months of Sassoon, A Diary of Time (non-fiction diary); Sassoon On The Art Of Creative Writing; The Diary Of An Unemployed Gentleman (non-fiction); Hashish Dreaming. His credits also include published articles on Middle Eastern subjects. Mr. Sassoon has a Masters Degree in Islamic Studies from McGill University in Montreal

Book preview

Houseplants are meant to bring joy into everyone’s life, and that’s who this collection of articles, originally published on Facebook, are meant to do, bring joy by introducing you to a fascinating world of diverse life forms. I offer a no-frills approach to choosing and keeping indoor plants. My advice covers everything from the ordinary tropical houseplants, to cactus and succulents, bromeliads, and orchids. My approach is a less scientific one. Sure, I know all the common and Latin names of many of our houseplants, as well as the textbook definitions of their origins and cultural needs. But, I’m not writing a textbook here! I won’t bombard readers with facts and figures like other houseplant experts. I go for the commonsense approach. That approach may be a little different. Besides discussing the physical needs of houseplants, I examine their emotional and psychological requirements.

How can this little book help you? If you have problems with your houseplants, maybe want to know what plant is right for your particular environment; desire general information on the best places to acquire houseplants; need information on potting soil and watering practices; or, just like to know where in your home to grow your houseplants, read these chapters and you’ll be helped. My goal is to get everyone involved in growing. Houseplants enrich the most ordinary lives with their exotic appeal and fascinating growth\ habits.

This book presents a forum for you whether you are an amateur grower or a professional. It will get you thinking and asking the following questions:

(1) What is your favorite houseplant and why?

(2) How do you grow your houseplants, that is, what is your setup like?

(3) Are you an apartment grower, a house grower, or do you have a greenhouse?

(4) What problems do you have growing plants and how have you overcome them?

(5) Do you have any special fertilizers that you use?

(6) Do you have any special remedies to treat insects and fungal attacks?

(7) What kind of pots do you use?

(8) What kind of soil do you use with your houseplants?

(9) Where do you buy your houseplants? 

Hopefully, by the time you finish reading, you’ll have more of these answers. However, if you still have questions, perhaps you want to know what plant is right for your particular environment or what pests are attacking your houseplants, feel free to contact me. I will do my best for you. Here is my contact information:

Email:

[e-mail]

Facebook Link To My Houseplant Blog"

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sassoons-Houseplant-Ramble/204230039605974?sk=wall

Link to my Garden Blog on my personal website:

https://sites.google.com/site/sassoonswritings/sassoon-s-houseplant-rumble-blog

Link To My Personal Website:

https://sites.google.com/site/sassoonswritings/

Chapter 1 - Beginning This Houseplant Blog About Things Green and Not So Green

(3/24/2011)

I am an indoor gardener. That is, I am not an outdoor gardener. What does that all mean? It means that I am into living vegetation that mostly lives inside, in dirt, dirt that is in plastic, clay or ceramic pots and sits on tables comfortably in my living room, dining room, any room, including my spacious, drafty basement. It does get pretty crazy sometimes, keeping that many plants, and I have had over 2,000 species in my house at once from time to time. In fact, some years ago, the New York Times came out to my house on Long Island and did a feature on my collection. It appeared in its Sunday supplement section and for a few days there, I was the big man on campus. But, I didn’t really came much about the whole thing. To me, indoor gardening is a passion, more an addiction, and if other people find that interesting or curious, that’s fine, but I really have nothing to say about it.

I previously said that I am not an outdoor gardener. That means that I really lack much feeling for it, though I have engaged in it from time to time. Generally, I hire a gardener during the season and he tends to the grasses and our shrubs (Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Evergreens, Lilacs and the like). I have grown the customer tomatoes in the ground and in pots, and some Zucchini and Cucumbers, Cauliflower and Broccoli and such, and have produced good seasonal crops, but this has bored me quickly and I stopped this after a few seasons. I did put in some blueberry and raspberry bushes and these have proved bountiful year after year, but I haven’t touched them after I planted them. I just ignore then and start picking the fruit in June and July. I do sometimes experiment with hardier indoor plants in an outdoor environment. I have planted a few fig trees in the front and backyard and have tried growing miniature pomegranates and hardy cacti (prickly pear cacti). Most experiments with indoor plants raised outside have failed in the first or second season but I still continue to try. So, you see, I have very little interest in outdoor gardening. When people tell me to plant coleus outside or impatiens or fuchsia, or wildflowers and bulbs, I have very little interest. There’s nothing wrong with it; I just don’t find any of it compelling.

Maybe my upbringing has a lot to do with indoor gardening. I was raised in an apartment and spent the first 34 years of my life in one. During that time, I became fascinated with bringing the outdoors inside. Maybe too watching my grandmother, with whom I was raised, growing her philodendrons and snake plants on the windowsill and watching her water and repot got me hooked. I don’t know exactly why or how it happened. I have just become an avid indoor gardener who has grown all the indoor plants there is to grow, tropicals, bromeliads, orchids, cactus and succulents, oddities, you name it and I’ve probably grown it. This new blog will explore my passion and hopefully help convey to you out there some useful information. As always with my blogs, your comments and questions are welcome.

Chapter 2 - Defining A Fanatic With A Flower Pot In My Hand

(3/25/2011)

So you think growing houseplants is just some passing fancy. No, you are wrong, or wrong for at least some of us. For us, it is an addiction that goes right up there with alcohol and cigarettes and narcotics and dope of various other kinds. The saving grace is that the houseplant mania does not keep you from participating in other aspects of human endeavor. Also, an obsession with houseplants at least does not drain your bank account completely, though it can get costly at time.

Houseplants are an obsession, yes. Collecting them is an obsession, yes. Going through plant catalogues and looking for new specimens to purchase is an obsession, as is haunting online and auction sites looking for the latest and greatest hybrids of some favorite cactus and succulent, and then buying, buying, buying, and buying some more. It is the anticipation of receiving the plants in the mail, always the anticipation. A week goes by and it becomes like Christmas, waiting for the mailman and your mouth watering at all the choice plants that are soon arriving at your home. Wow. There is nothing like this fix. It is an adrenaline rush of the first order. But, it can get out of hand like any addiction. You cannot stop buying plants, plants and more plants. Bringing them in by mail, going to the local greenhouses looking, searching, going through all new species that come in. Going to Home Depot’s and Lowe’s searching them out. How many