Petal to the Metal

This book gives you ways to beat insect infestations on your houseplants, tips on preparing plants for winter, how to raise orchids, African violets, grow a Christmas cactus the way your grandma did, and make poinsettias rebloom. You can learn how to make a dish garden and terrarium. You learn about the right way to water your houseplants, ways to fight back against aphids, mealybugs, spider mites on your English ivy, and fungus gnats (when I worked in the greenhouse, they always flew straight at my eyes and I mastered how to kill them in mid-flight). When insects afflict your houseplants, consult this book. I’ve worked over 20 years in horticulture, and before then, I was reading all of my grandma’s houseplant books and getting plant starts from her, and had two tables of houseplants when I was in junior high and high school. These days I’m raising Phalaenopsis orchids (butterfly orchids) and other fussbudget plants. I’ve learned things through long experience. I share them all in this book to make your time with your houseplants fun and easy.I’m a former horticulturist who worked in the gardening and landscape field for half of my life. I’ve worked in garden centers, as a perennial greenhouse manager, as a landscape designer, as an independent landscape contractor, and I was a municipal horticulturist for six years, taking care of over 20 gardens, a 300-rose rose garden, and planting 100 trees per year. I now have a trick back to show for it, but the memories live on!Everything I’ve learned out in the field, I’m sharing here with you in these books.