Houseplant Information

I like to pretend that I came by green thumb naturally; that I just look at a plant and it grows by feet. This isn't true. Actually I work pretty hard at my collection. I research all the time and I am vigilant in my look out for bugs and pests and leaf droop etc. I once had a spider mite infestation and I lost a couple of good specimen. I am still annoyed at the lady who gave me that plant. It was a sweet potato vine that brought the bugs in and my first lesson in infestations and the need for a speedy reaction. I have an old Readers Digest book collection that I find very informative. I bought it at a garage sale. It is one of the those mail order things where they would have sent someone binders and pages over a period of time. Lucky for me whoever bought it originally really put it together right and took care of it. Unfortunately they did it twenty-five years ago so there are some gaps in knowledge. Also houseplants change, evolve go in and out of favor etc. and I'll run into some plants that they just didn't list in the series.
Sometimes I can search a gardening forum but, they can be hard to navigate or just suck you in and cost time. I find that outside gardening prompts a lot more discussion than houseplants too. So my next best resource is Houseplant Secrets (How To Care For Any Type Of House Plant. Answers To 1001 Questions). I like having the instant information right on my desktop.
With the case of the Sweet Potato Vine, everything seemed fine at first. Then it started dropping leaves, which I figured was a light or watering issue. Almost overnight the plant was almost bare and a few others in the house started to drop leaves too. In less than a week everyone in the vines vicinity was showing signs. I ended up throwing it out and managed to save everyone else. Since then, I quarantine any new plant. I keep it away from everybody for a month or so and watch for signs that something is wrong before I put it in general population. You can't trust anyone!