How Not to Kill Your Plant

A comprehensive guidebook for kids on proper houseplant care, featuring bold illustrations and engaging infographics.

Houseplants can add a touch of green to any living space, and caring for them can be a relaxing and rewarding hobby. For kids interested in learning more about plant care, this comprehensive guidebook covers all the basics and more, teaching kids all about the different types of houseplants, their growth habits, and the best practices to care for them. Divided into three sections, How Not to Kill Your Plant provides all the information kids need to ensure their houseplants thrive:

1. The Basics of Care: Learn about the essential elements of plant care, including watering, lighting, and soil.

1. Encyclopedia of houseplants: Identify and learn about common houseplants, including their ideal growing conditions and common issues to look out for.

1. Cultivation practice: Discover tips and tricks for repotting, propagation, and other plant care techniques.

Highlights include:

• A glossary of basic plant terminology (e.g., substrate, fertilizer, humidity, etc.)


• Step-by-step instructions for taking care of houseplants


• Advice on choosing the right plant


• Various problems you can expect to encounter - and ways to solve them

Images accompany the text in a fun yet logical and orderly fashion, such as this numbered list for repotting:

1. Water the plant well the day before repotting. This will make it easier to remove it from its pot.


2. Remove the plant from its pot.


3. As you carefully release the roots, remove old, excess soil from the plant.


4. Remove old, rotting roots.


5. Having selected a pot with a drainage hole and of appropriate size, wash this pot in soapy water.


6. Put a drain (e.g., a layer of expanding clay balls or pebbles) in the bottom of the pot. (Plants watered in a tray do not need a drain.)


7. Add a small layer of the new substrate.


8. Place the plant in the new pot.


9. Fill any remaining space in the pot with the new substrate.


10. Tamp the soil down gently with your fingers, ensuring that the plant is well anchored. Don't fill the pot with soil right to the top, but to 1 cm below it - you must leave space for watering.


11. Water the plant well (unless it is a cactus or succulent - in which case wait 2 weeks before watering).


12. Your plant has been potted. Hurray!

Plant care instructions are likewise fun yet clear and actionable, such as this one for the Cactus:

• Fertilize max. 1x per month with special fertilizer for cacti.


• In spring or summer, transplant to a terracotta pot. Do not water for 2 weeks after repotting.


• Propagate by offsets.


• It needs an airy, permeable substrate, like one with sand.

Filled with clear and concise advice, this book is much more than just a practical guide. It features fresh, modern illustrations that bring the information to life, as well as engaging infographics that make the information easy to understand and remember.

How Not to Kill Your Plant is suitable for children aged 6-9 interested in growing houseplants. Geared toward kids who love plants and want to develop a lifelong hobby of plant care, this guidebook is ideal for any young ones looking to green up their home, as well as adult readers and flower shop patrons.

Magda Gargulakova has a degree in Art History and she is a co-founder and also curator of the OFF/FORMAT gallery in Brno, Czechia, which exhibits and promotes contemporary progressive art, mostly by young artists. She worked for a time in marketing, but her love affair with books is a long one. For the gallery, she has edited and published several art publications. Since 2019, she have added to this experience as an editor of literature for very young readers at Albatros Media, using her two daughters for quality control.

Lenka Chytilova grew up in a small East Moravian village. Drawn to books and writing from a young age, it was no surprise when she got a degree in Czech Language and Literature and German Translation. She has always tried to connect books and reading, her greatest hobby, with her work; she worked part-time in a bookshop for many years and she was also engaged as an editor and proofreader. Lenka likes classic Czech fairy tales, and she loves Večerníček, the Czech television programme for children's bedtime stories.

Hannah Abbo is a self-taught illustrator from Brighton, UK. She is currently living and working in Lisbon, Portugal, with her partner and child, their (slightly) overweight cat, and 15 houseplants. When she's not drawing, she loves making ceramics in a local studio, visiting the botanical gardens, and growing vegetables.