Houseplants

This inspirational and practical book demonstrates how well-chosen houseplants breathe life into an interior, lifting the spirits, providing a burst of colour and texture and fill a room with scent and character. Informed and imaginative text by Clare Matthews and stunning photography by Clive Nichols demonstrate how tired or unwelcoming rooms can be instantly transformed with a few well-chosen houseplants. Choosing the right plant for difficult locations, using colour creatively and the importance of texture, shape and scale are all explained. The book reveals how to use budget plants and containers to great effect as well as how to get the best from investment plants. There are separate chapters on flowering and foliage plants, on containers and plant choices for difficult positions, as well as advice on feeding, watering and dealing with problems. It concludes with a plant profile directory that gives good, solid information on the care of the most commonly grown houseplants.

Clare Matthews is a garden designer and garden writer. In her books, Clare draws heavily on her practical experience of maintaining her own gardens while juggling work and family life to produce straightforward, no-nonsense advice on the easy way to get things done. Her imaginative and slightly quirky take on the garden and her willingness to get her hands dirty is obvious in her design and project books. Clare writes about her gardens at blog.clarematthews.com. She lives in the U.K.