Making More Plants: The Science, Art, and Joy of Propagation (ISBN 051770787X)

Amazon.com Review:
Generally, a gardening book that teaches practical skills is designed to look more like a plain textbook than an artful coffee-table decoration, but Ken Druse (The Natural Garden, The Collector's Garden) has changed that with his gorgeous book Making More Plants. An invitation to examine the miracle of birth in the botanical world is at the center of this book, and you'll be amazed and delighted as Druse's photos and text bring this astonishing world to life. Filling these pages are close-up photos of plants at every stage of life and in every variety--pinecones, dried seed pods, root and stem cuttings, ripe fruits, and lush flowers show off their unique shapes and colors everywhere you look. Specific techniques are outlined with both photos and text; from the spore prints of ferns to the nicking of hard-shelled seeds, you'll learn exactly how to tackle every aspect of creating new plants. Careful attention is paid in the text to the timing of taking different types of cuttings from different plants, and these practical details will hopefully help curb any urgent desire to play Johnny Appleseed with your favorite wildflowers until the season is exactly right. Special projects like hardwood cutting and involving children in plant propagation have small sections devoted to them; the African violet project for youngsters is a fascinating introduction, and only slightly more involved than that old carrot-top-in-a-dish-of-water project. For serious gardeners who enjoy plants for more than their pretty flowers and attractive shapes, this combination of science and beauty will supply both inspiration and information. --Jill Lightner

Everyone can learn something from this book:
The title of this book says it all and the book, as unbelievable as it may be, delivers it all. Whether you want to learn about propagation by seed, cutting, layering, grafting, division, leaves, roots or how to propagate geophytes, the clear, detailed instructions and step-by-step photos will get you working in no time. Ken Druse, gardener and photographer extraordinaire, has packed this book with photos and has not started in on the details without providing plenty of preparation tips including information on seed collecting and storing and a quick botany lesson. And Druse doesn't leave you guessing about how to propagate the plants you want - an extensive appendix fills you in on the best methods for specific plants by listing them alphabetically. Making More Plants is incredibly useful as both a quick reference and as a gardening textbook for learning more complex techniques.

Best Gardening Book for the amateur Gardner, Ever.:
This book explains everything I want to know about preparing, sowing, and grafting plants. Mr. Druse has answered every question I've had. very well written. Easy to understand. Great detail.

Good, but there is better:
First things first, this is a beautiful and inspiring book. It is definately worthwhile to have in your gardening library. If you need some motivation to get out and garden, here's your book. After my initial pouring over this book, it's remained on my shelf in the library and not on the greenhouse bench. If you are looking for a reference book with detailed instructions and illustrated examples on how to propagate, Alan Toogood's "AHS Propagating Plants" is the better buy.

Rich and Inspiring Introduction to all types of propogation.:
`Making More Plants' by leading horticultural journalist Ken Druse is a glossy and inviting introduction to virtually all different kinds of plant propagation available to the home gardener. It is both more extensive and less intensive than the excellent `The New Seed Starters Handbook' by Nancy Bubel, which is a humble trade paperback which; however, covers starting plants from seed in much more detail than Maestro Druse's oversized volume. While Bubel has more information on seeds for less money, this should not turn you away from Druse' book for the very simple reason that starting new plants from seed is only one of several different ways of increasing your store of a great variety of plants. And, for many plants, `asexual' propagation is far more successful than planting seeds. One aspect of Druse' book one should not underestimate is reflected in his subtitle, `The Science, Art, and Joy of Propagation'. This means this book is at least as much a pep talk and sermon about the pleasures of propagation as it is about understanding and technique. One thing I especially appreciate about the book is the fact that Druse does all of his own photography. I may be imagining this, but I sense a better than average effectiveness in the way the photographs capture the author's points. This alone is not sufficient to buy the book, but it all adds up to making this `pretty' book well worth the money. What really surprises me is the number of different propagation techniques the author covers. The list is: Hunting and Gathering. Wait, this isn't a `propagation' technique per se, but it is a method by which one can increase the variety of plants in your garden. So, like cooking with wild game and wild mushrooms, this is all part of the big picture of plant collecting. Conditioning. A preparation for and understanding of the various aspects of seed planting. This is one of those `science' chapters. Sowing. The main event for growing plants from seed. Vegetative Reproduction. The general term for `asexual' (not from seeds) propagation. Cuttings. The most common method for starting a new plant from a piece of an established plant. The paradigm of this method is the parable of the old man sticking a green branch into the ground at random and having it `miraculously' develop into a tree. Leaves. Similar to cuttings, but only available for a smaller number of plants, primarily evergreens, succulents, and tropical plants. Layering. This is the way nature does asexual reproduction with a lot of plants. The most easily visualized example, at least for us older folks, is the spider plant, which develops complete little plants at the ends of its spider-leg like vines. Grafting. This is not so much propagation as a method for improving a plant or combining two to get the better of two worlds. The most famous grafting use was the grafting of European wine grape varieties onto hearty American rootstock, when a disease wiped out the European grape plants. Division. Another example of man imitating nature. Probably the most common method used by occasional amateur gardeners. Geophytes. I find it amazing that the author includes this chapter, as I would have thought it difficult to the point of impossibility to artificially propagate ferns from the tiny spores that preceded seeds in the evolutionary development of sexual propagation techniques. Roots. Very similar to layering and division, and most commonly used method for certain types of grasses. For a `pretty' book, this volume has remarkably good appendices. By far the best is the long list of `Resources' with addresses, telephone numbers, and sketches for dozens of plant sources in the United States, Canada, and the UK. Unfortunately, there are few web sites, but any web jockey worth their salt should be able to track down these companies with their favorite search engine. This is an excellent first book for the amateur, and an excellent source of daydreams while reading in January and February as you sit among your piles of seed catalogues which are probably flooding your mailbox right about now.

Rambling with a Radio Gardener:
I bought this book for some very specific instructions and advice about propagating plants- techniques, supplies, time of year to do it, what techniques for what plants, etc. Instead I got a gorgeous coffee table book with beautiful pictures but a lot of text that makes no sense, and very few instructions. Not clearly written, rambles instead of proceeding logically... what were the editors thinking?