Product Description

For people who love gardens, propagation is gardening itself, the practice of growing whatever you want, whenever you want. Whether you crave healthy, vigorous plants, wish to grow new ones to share with friends, or hope to produce scores of them to fill your own beds and borders -- for free -- Making More Plants will help fulfill your most vivid garden dreams. Ken Druse, one of America's foremost gardening authorities, an award-winning photographer, and the author of the best-selling Natural Garden series, presents innovative, practical techniques for expanding any plant collection, with more than 500 full-color photographs.

Based on years of personal research, Making More Plants is a practical manual as well as a beautiful garden book, presenting procedures Ken Druse has tested and adapted, as well as photographed step by step. In clear, nspirational language Ken takes the mystery out of seemingly complex practices such as seed conditioning, bulb division, leaf and stem cutting, grafting, and more. Whether focusing on techniques as easy as creating multiple plants from a single perennial using a common kitchen knife or on more complicated practices such as air layering, Ken's advice will inspire both novice and experienced gardeners to turn their homes and gardens into personal nurseries.

Supplementing the text and photographs is a comprehensive appendix charting methods for propagating more than 700 different plants, listed by both common and Latin names, an invaluable resource unmatched by even the most thorough of propagation manuals.

Straightforward advice, gorgeous photographs, and Ken's own engaging voice all combine to make Making More Plants an indispensable guide for every passionate gardener and plant lover.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59783 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-14
• Released on: 2000-11-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Amazon.com
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

About the Author
Ken Druse is nationally known as a garden expert, and with the huge success of his previous four titles -- The Natural Garden, The Natural Shade Garden, The Natural Habitat Garden, and The Collector's Garden -- is America's best-loved gardener. Ken has contributed both articles and photographs to numerous gardening magazines, and is the garden editor of House Beautiful magazine. He lives and gardens in New York and New Jersey.

Customer Reviews

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.

Propagation addicts, your prayers have been answered.
After 5 years of raising a bazillion plants from seed and just finishing a 3 month course on plant propagation (and trying to figure out how to turn my kitchen into a clean room for the purpose of tissue culture without driving my husband to divorce court), I saw Ken Druse's book reviewed in 'Garden Design ' magazine and ordered it. Not only is this book exquisitely photographed to the point of tears, (I get very emotional about plants, except marigolds) it has excellent information and clear directions which put my propagation textbook to shame. If you raise more than ten plants from seed, you will eventually want thousands of plants and Ken is your man. The step by step instructions are clear and botanically correct. The photographs are achingly beautiful but more importantly, tell you what to do, why and how, yet without putting you to sleep like above-mentioned textbook. In fact, you may need two copies, one to fill in as the proverbial coffee table amusement and another to take to your greenhouse or shed or wherever you commit these delightful little acts of plant reproduction. Oh, and maybe one for the bedroom on slow nights. And maybe the bathroom. One for the car for long trips. This book is that good.

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.