Guest Author - Jill Florio

For those wishing to develop and creatively use their green thumbs indoors, I recommend taking a look at my personable, free online courses at Suite101: Houseplants (For Beginners) and Decorating With Houseplants.

The course Houseplants offers first steps to selecting and growing the easiest houseplants for your personal style and home conditions. Lessons provide handy lists, pictures and descriptions of best plants for each window exposure; easiest plants for beginners; some very popular plants that are NOT for beginners; and best plants for Chronic Overwaterers. Using the discussion questions and simple quizzes, the student will learn about their personal growing style. Nuts and bolts houseplant care is covered, each in its own section of the syllabus: pots, potting soil, fertilizer, water, watering cans, misters, potting stations and tools, and more. A houseplant shopping trip is featured in lesson three to help the reader learn to identify a healthy plant in any store or nursery.

Decorating with Houseplants is a creative, two-lesson mini-course sure to get your creative juices flowing! Learn to use plants to decorate like professional interior designers, use plants as Feng Shui cures to increase your wealth or improve your love life, and learn how to grow topiaries, terrariums, bog plants and cactus deserts as your own "class" project.

Decorating Lessons include:

* Designing a grouped, or jungle effect with airy plants or vines
* Setting a dramatic tone with a specimen plant
* Selecting the best plants to clean your indoor air
* Using light to set off foliage
* Using architectural plants to add height to a room
* Using houseplants to soften harmful Feng Shui "shars" that can impair your well-being, and create a pleasing ambience by directing the energy flow correctly
* Using the right herb garden for your kitchen, whether it's sunny or dark
* And more!

Altogether, feedback from students tell me these are fun, easy courses that pack a lot of information into the lesson sections. Houseplants has four lesson chapters. Decorating with Houseplants has two lesson chapters.

Both courses are suitable for beginners, with several other, more advanced free Houseplant and Gardening Courses within the SuiteU School of Gardening.