Indoor Gardens Book

Describes how to plan and create an indoor garden, discussing propagation, making a terrarium, potting plants, feeding and watering, pests, and other problems.

School Library Journal

Gr 1-4-Each of these titles has approximately 13 text pages supplemented with full-page color photographs of plants and children, and diagrams. The illustrations of a plant's life cycle, a prepared pot, and common tools are the same in both books. Indoor is the weaker of the two titles. Recommended plants are marigolds and cosmos, which thrive outdoors. Children are also pictured planting beet seeds, not usually a first choice for indoor gardens. The selection of words to define seems random; "miniature" is in the glossary, but "terrarium" and "landscape" are not. Peat moss is defined as "a pale green moss-"-maybe in nature, but not in bags. Several of the tools shown do not relate to indoor gardening. Patio features some lovely examples of container gardens, although one picture is captioned, "Your front steps are a great spot to begin a patio garden," and front steps are not generally thought of as part of a patio. Because of topical overlap, most collections will be better served by Angela Wilkes's visually delightful My First Garden Book (Knopf, 1992; o.p.). Two excellent indoor gardening books are Carol Lerner's My Indoor Garden (Morrow, 1999) and Christina Bj rk's whimsical Linnea's Windowsill Garden (R & S, 1988). Sharon Lovejoy's Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots (Workman, 1999) will inspire experienced gardeners looking for creative ways to use containers.-Marilyn Payne Phillips, University City Public Library, MO Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.