{"id":31453,"date":"2025-02-13T04:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T08:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/?p=31453"},"modified":"2025-02-13T05:08:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T09:08:21","slug":"book-review-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2025\/02\/13\/book-review-27\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Herbal Houseplants, by Susan Betz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Herbal Houseplants<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>by Susan Betz<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Publisher: Cool Springs Press<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>176 page paperback<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Release date: April 27, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before I picked up this book, my idea of indoor plants was strictly holiday poinsettias and free- standing philodendrons. Anything else belonged out on the deck or inside a greenhouse.\u00a0<em>Herbal Houseplants\u00a0<\/em>showed me what I was missing: Herbs.<\/p>\n<p>Botanically, an herb is a plant with a stem that doesn&#8217;t become woody. Historically it can be prized for scent, flavor or medicinal purposes. The author thinks of herbs as plants with possibilities. Indoor plants provide benefits. Herbs personalize the people-plant connection. The author wrote this book to showcase the peace and tranquility that can be found in growing herbs. There are endless possibilities here.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-31456\" src=\"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_0055-1-1-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_0055-1-1-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_0055-1-1-rotated.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/> The piece about catnip was my personal fave.\u00a0 Through the centuries, <em>Nepeta cataria<\/em> has been lauded for a variety of qualities&#8211;oil from its leaves was said to stimulate blood flow and even the most laid back person could turn mean and quarrelsome if they chewed the plant&#8217;s root.\u00a0 English tea brewed from catnip leaves was VERY popular until supplanted by Chinese teas. Universally recognized for it&#8217;s popularity with cats, catnip mixed with lemon thyme and mint still brews a smooth tea for colds and coughs in humans.<\/p>\n<p>This book has a liberal number of very good drawings and color photographs. There&#8217;s also an index, an acknowledgements section, and a two page list of resources and supplies.\u00a0 Everything you need to know to grow a happy herb is right there for the reading.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Susan Betz\u00a0<\/strong>has been working with herbs to educate the public for over four decades. She&#8217;s the author of\u00a0<em>Stepping into the Circle of the Seasons<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Nature\/Native Herbs for Pleasure and Purpose<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Magical Moons &amp; Seasonal Circles<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Reviewer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Weyland Smith is a columnist, interviewer and storyteller for Pagan Pages. He can be reached at weylandsmith@yahoo.com<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Herbal Houseplants by Susan Betz Publisher: Cool Springs Press 176 page paperback Release date: April 27, 2021 Before I picked up this book, my idea of indoor plants was strictly holiday poinsettias and free- standing philodendrons. Anything else belonged out on the deck or inside a greenhouse.\u00a0Herbal Houseplants\u00a0showed me what I was missing: Herbs. Botanically, an herb is a plant with a stem that doesn&#8217;t become woody. Historically it can be prized for scent, flavor or medicinal purposes. The author thinks of herbs as plants with possibilities. Indoor plants provide benefits. Herbs personalize the people-plant connection. The author wrote this book to showcase the peace and tranquility that can be found in growing herbs. There are endless possibilities here. &nbsp; &nbsp; The piece about catnip was my personal fave.\u00a0 Through the centuries, Nepeta cataria has been lauded for a variety of qualities&#8211;oil from its leaves was said to stimulate blood flow and even the most laid back person could turn mean and quarrelsome if they chewed the plant&#8217;s root.\u00a0 English tea brewed from catnip leaves was VERY popular until supplanted by Chinese teas. Universally recognized for it&#8217;s popularity with cats, catnip mixed with lemon thyme and mint still brews a smooth tea for colds and coughs in humans. This book has a liberal number of very good drawings and color photographs. There&#8217;s also an index, an acknowledgements section, and a two page list of resources and supplies.\u00a0 Everything you need to know to grow a happy herb is right there for the reading. About the Author Susan Betz\u00a0has been working with herbs to educate the public for over four decades. She&#8217;s the author of\u00a0Stepping into the Circle of the Seasons,\u00a0Nature\/Native Herbs for Pleasure and Purpose and\u00a0Magical Moons &amp; Seasonal Circles. About the Reviewer Weyland Smith is a columnist, interviewer and storyteller for Pagan Pages. He can be reached at weylandsmith@yahoo.com &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10005],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31453"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31460,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31453\/revisions\/31460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}