Customer Reviews

Plant Propagation A to Z: Growing Plants for Free

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this book. Beautiful color photos of propagation. We use this in our class for Master Gardeners for reference. I like the way it has seperate lists for cuttings and division and seed germination. This makes it for fast look up. I bought one for home use too. The reference part tells season to do propagation,strike time or germination time and temp. All around good reference guide.

Filled with lots of photos and charts. Very thorough listings broken down by propagation category (seed, cutting, division etc) and genus listing best time, requirements, time required etc. I've been a plantaholic for about 25 years and was amazed at how much the book had to offer. With all of the photos, charts and descriptions it should be detailed enough for the beginner too.

I previewed 5 books on plant propagation from our local library prior to purchasing "Plant Propagation A to Z". This book may not be the best for those very knowledgeable in plant propagation but it is a great resource book for anyone with less than expert knowledge. It does cover most of the ways that a person can propagate plants and contains the information you need to start or divide plants. My personal interest is in starting seeds in a small greenhouse. I purchased it only a few weeks ago and have already used it many times.

This is a great book for beginners as well as the seasoned gardener. Very easy to understand language and a lot of pictures. Anyone who has ever considered propagating their own plants either from seed to grafting should really consider buying this book.

While this book is generally good for the new or basic gardener looking to propagate plants by division, cuttings, seed, grafts, and bulbs, it does not have the depth needed for the extremely passionate or seasoned gardener. Also--considering it claims to cover "Plant Propagation A to Z--it has virtually NOTHING in the book for the VEGETABLE GARDENER even though seed saving and growing of food plants is such a time-honored practice. Unfortunately, the way the book is organized adversely affects how effectively it can be used, too. While it starts with good solid separate chapters on different propagation techniques, it is compromised by throwing its informational charts all over the place. For example, the reader can't just take a dahlia and see what s/he can do to propagate it. S/he'd have find it first in the basic chart, p.31; then in the seed chart, p.64; next in the division chart, p.86; then in the cuttings chart, p.104; and lastly in a "Techniques for Some Popular Garden Ornamentals" section near the end on p.148 to read a short roundup with a small picture. But where the book fatally falls apart is in its seed section, especially since so many flowers that gardeners propagate are started using this method. The seed chart only gives the reader very short pieces of information in one line of 4 categories: pre-sowing requirements, temperature, amount of soil coverage, and average length of germination time. There is no room for more specific instructions, such as if you need to vary light exposure during germination; scarify seeds in unusual ways, stratify seeds at particular cold levels, etc. For example, I lost my whole tray of ornamental millet seedlings last year because I left my seed kit's humidity dome on too long...only to find out from the vendor that its young plants can't tolerate humidity. This book had no room in its charts to tell me that, or anything on ornamental millet at all since the popular Pennisetums (fountain grasses) weren't even selected for inclusion in this book! ("Plant Propagation A to Z" also doesn't distinguish between different cultivars of the same plant like the zillions of kinds of zinnias, either, but gives one generic instruction for all of them, even though some have different requirements.) For a propagation book like this to be valuable for me, it would have to triple its seed chart information as well as add a big section on vegetable seeds--or not pretend that it covers most of the flowers grown from seed as well as the whole broad spectrum of cultivated plants. After getting this book, I deeply regretted not spending the extra money right at the start for one of the more lengthy and expensive plant propagation books...because I still have to buy one of them now to get the information I was looking for in the first place!

Wonderful that he now has a book for the US market with numerous easy-to-read tables, lots of data, and plant specific sections (alphabetized). His older book is good, too, but more for New Zealand.

Full of information on all types of propagation. Can't go wrong with this one!

While there is some good information in this book I would hardly rate this as a book that tells one everything they need to know about propagation and certainly not one for true beginners. For instance, in the chapter on propagating by cuttings, while it is stated that the cutting should consist of 3-4 nodes, nowhere does it state that at least one of those nodes must be inserted into the rooting medium. Telling the reader to remove the leaves from the lowest node does not also convey that that node is supposed to be covered by the medium. I have seen complete novices take cuttings from a plant with long internodes, leaving a long stub below the node which the novice will then insert into the rooting medium without actually covering the node. No node, no roots, no new plant. No way does this book deserve to be called all you need to know about propagation. The tables for specific germination requirements (light/no light), season to divide or make cuttings, what type of cuttings are most appropriate for a certain plant, etc. are the most useful information in this book and the reason I did not give it a much lower rating.

I think this is a great book for beginner to intermediate gardeners. It's all that 90% of the people out there would ever need. The book describes several methods of propagation, then gives lists of plants and what methods to use. It doesen't cover some exotic plants, but then most people aren't trying to grow very exotic plants. I recommend it.

I loaned out my copy of this great book, and never got it back. Bought this copy as a replacement. The only thing I could wish for is better indexing by common names. I studied engineering and marketing, not botany.