From Seed To Bloom: How to Grow over 500 Annuals, Perennials & Herbs (Paperback)

by Eileen Powell (Author) "THERE ARE MANY GOOD REASONS for starting your own plants from seed..." (more)
Key Phrases: start seeds outdoors, stake tall species, moistened growing medium, A-Annual P-Perennial B-Biennial, North America, South Africa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
For gardeners who are looking for economical ways to add plants to their gardens or for those who can't wait until the newest cultivar makes its way into the local nursery, growing from seed is a solution. Landscape designer Powell gives germination and cultural information for over 500 flowering plants. Following basic chapters on seed starting, seedling care, and vegetative propagation, plant entries are listed alphabetically by genus and often accompanied by a line drawing of the mature plant. Succinct "seed packet" information is provided on sowing, germination, planting seedlings outdoors, caring for plants, and propagation. Not all the plants listed are easy to grow from seed, and some take years until there is a bloom to behold. But gardeners honest about their abilities and degree of patience will find useful information. A good addition to collections that already have Ann Reilly's Park's Success with Seeds (Park Seed Co., 1978. o.p.), which has hard-to-find color photographs of emerging seedlings. (Index not seen.)-Virginia A. Henrichs, Chicago Botanic Garden Lib., Glencoe, Ill.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This paperback guide to growing from seed is an alphabetical listing of 536 plants--from abronia to zinnia--with information on sowing, germinating, caring, propagating, hardness zones, and light and soil requirements. Most listings include a black-and-white drawing of the plant. There is advice on the basics of starting plants from seed, including a chapter on the joy of asexual propagation--which may be a bit more than the average gardener needs to know. There's also a cross-reference listing of common and botanical plant names, as well as a list of seed companies. George Cohen

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (January 3, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882662597
• ISBN-13: 978-0882662596
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #742,359 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable reference guide!, January 16, 2000

By	Eileen M Rickman (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews

This is an indispensable book for the home seed-starter. I teach plant propagation classes in addition to starting a thousand seedlings in my basement every year and this is the book I recommend. An encyclopedic format with plant-by-plant listings of both indoor and outdoor sowing requirements, transplanting and care information, plus line drawings of each plant make this an invaluable reference guide!

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good on the seed, but not on the bloom, April 8, 2002

By	"justluckyiguess" (Winthrop, ME USA) - See all my reviews

I have been planting flowers from seed in my home for almost 5 years now. Last year I had over 1400 seedlings on multi-level shelves under flourescent and natural light in my dining room. (Boy do I need a greenhouse!) So this book was not a lot of new information to me. A lot of what is listed can be found on the back of a seed packet, but it's not practical to sit on the floor of my favorite garden supply store and read every seed package for suggestions before I buy it. (This is important, because I'm not interested in refrigerating my seeds 3 weeks before I plant them or doing other such preparations required for some seeds.) One major thing missing from this book was photography. There were drawings, but I'm sorry to say that they were mostly a way of breaking up the monotony of the text rather than a reference tool. On the good side, this book did an excellent job of providing the proper germination environment, and each plant had a quick reference in a shaded box that listed the type of plant (annual, perennial, etc), its hardiness zone, and its flowering season. This allowed me to quickly eliminate the plants that were inappropriate for my zone. The regular index wasn't very useful, but one wonderful addition was an index of the common & latin names. I refer to this when looking at some of my books that include the full color photography I was missing. (Almost makes up for it....almost!) Of course, there is the standard hardiness zone map, but they also added a map each for the probable first and last frost dates. (Nice!) Also included was a directory of seed companies and their addresses. All in all, this book does a good job of covering the seed part, but a poor job of covering the bloom part.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best reference on seed starting, May 7, 2001

By A Customer

This is a great reference book for gardeners who are interested in starting plants from seed rather than buying the same old stuff from their local garden centers each year. This best thing about this book is that it rates each plant on its degree of difficulty when it comes to growing that plant from seed. Unlike the seed catalogs which imply that all plants are easy to grow from seed, this book breaks it down into detailed instructions as to how to get the seeds to germinate and what conditions they require once germination takes place. It is a great reference when browsing through the seed catalogs as to which plants are worth trying to start from seed and those whose needs may be way too much time, money or environmentally demanding to even bother with.