Propgation elation
I love Ken Druse's books and I was not dissapointed by this one either.This book has so much information in it.The reason I purchased this book was because I took it out from the library and did not want to return it!I would highly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in gardening, it will help you achieve a garden like you see on TV.
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.
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