Angela Williams Duea - The Complete Guide To Growing Windowsill Plants: Everything You Need To Know Explained Simply (Back To Basics)

A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the Vice President of Sunshine here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bears memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

• Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.
• Support local and no-kill animal shelters.
• Plant a tree to honor someone you love.
• Be a developer put up some birdhouses.
• Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.
• Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.
• Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.
• Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.
• Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.
• If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.
• Support your local farmers market.
• Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

Dedication

Donna Murphy:

To my family, who is a constant source of inspiration and comic relief.

Angela Williams Duea:

This book is dedicated to my mother Kathleen and grandmother Therese, who gave me a love of nurturing plants.

Introduction

My first houseplant was a small ivy plant, which I kept on a windowsill. It was a cutting from the English ivy that grew around my childhood home, and it reminded me of the garden I helped my mother create. Twenty years later, I still have a cutting from that original English ivy growing in my sunny south-facing window. The ivys pretty leaves, along with the foliage of several other plants and herbs, brighten my kitchen window.

A windowsill, the horizontal shelf or member at the bottom of a window opening, is among the best possible places to grow a plant it provides your plants with the light they need, spruces up the look of your home from the outside, and improves the quality of the air in your home. In the wintertime, windowsill plants provide a green contrast to the cold, white world outside the window. In the summer, these plants extend your garden to the indoors. Whether you live in a studio apartment in the city or an old farmhouse in the countryside, a windowsill is a suitable location for growing some of your favorite plants.

Plants are Not Just for the Great Outdoors

Humans have been living with houseplants since the beginning of time. Archeological artifacts from the ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks show paintings of potted plants in homes and atriums. People cultivated herbs indoors for year-round availability and used them for their natural medicinal and seasoning properties.