Houe Plants

Here’s a long, quirky and suitably leafy Crappy Old Books version:

House Plants (1988) by Antony Mason – Geddes & Grosset

There comes a point in domestic life when furniture is no longer enough.

The room has a sofa. It has a lamp. It has curtains. It may even have a tasteful bowl containing absolutely nothing.

What it really needs, obviously, is a plant.

House Plants by Antony Mason, published by Geddes & Grosset in 1988, is a practical guide to the peculiar indoor gardening habit of inviting vegetation into the home and then spending the next several years worrying about whether it has too much water, too little light or a personal grievance.

Houseplants appear deceptively simple.

You buy one.

You put it near a window.

You water it occasionally.

Then three weeks later one leaf turns yellow and suddenly you are conducting an investigation worthy of a government inquiry.

Mason’s guide helps make sense of the business, covering the care and cultivation of indoor plants and offering advice for keeping them alive, healthy and decorative rather than slowly transforming them into expensive compost.

Published in the late 1980s, the book comes from a particularly glorious period for houseplants, when spider plants dangled from macramé holders, rubber plants occupied corners with quiet authority and no respectable conservatory was complete without something enormous attempting to reach the ceiling.

This was also before the modern houseplant boom turned owning a monstera into a lifestyle statement.

In 1988, a cheese plant was simply something your aunt had beside the television.

The joy of a book like this is its straightforward practicality.

Plants need the correct light, watering, temperature, feeding and general care. They do not need inspirational quotes, designer ceramic pots costing more than the plant itself or their own social-media account.

Different plants, naturally, have different requirements.

Some enjoy sunshine.

Some prefer shade.

Some like plenty of water.

Others respond to enthusiastic watering by immediately collapsing in protest.

Learning which is which is one of the principal skills of indoor gardening and considerably cheaper than discovering it experimentally.

The book is ideal for anyone interested in vintage gardening, retro interiors or the increasingly popular art of filling every available windowsill with something green.

It also offers a pleasing glimpse into the domestic gardening fashions of the 1980s, an era when homes contained vast quantities of patterned wallpaper, substantial televisions and enough foliage to make the average living room resemble the reception area of a provincial hotel.

This copy is in Good condition, having survived since 1988 with rather more success than many of the houseplants originally purchased alongside books like it.

That alone is something of an achievement.

Books are, in fairness, easier to maintain.

They do not require watering.

They tolerate poor light.

And if you leave one unattended for three weeks while on holiday, it rarely dies dramatically against the window.

Ideal for gardeners, houseplant enthusiasts, collectors of vintage practical books or anyone currently staring at a drooping plant and wondering whether it needs water, sunlight, repotting or simply a stern conversation.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where all plants are presumed alive until proven otherwise and the books require considerably less horticultural supervision.

ISBN: None
Condition: Good

Keep browsing: See more Gardening books Other books by Antony Mason