A guide to plant propagation that illustrates practical step-by-step propagation techniques and offers an alphabetically arranged overview of more than one thousand garden plants.

Hundreds of full-color, step-by-step photographic sequences and detailed instructions introduce the appropriate propagation techniques for more than one thousand different kinds of plants, including roses, orchids, ferns, palms, grasses, vegetables, and annuals.

A guide to propagation from the author of The New Shade Garden, with over 500 photographs: “My bible for rejuvenating plants.” —Anne Raver, The New York Times For people who love gardens, propagation—the practice of growing whatever you want, whenever you want—is gardening itself. In Making More Plants, one of America's foremost gardening authorities, presents innovative, practical techniques for expanding any plant collection, along with more than 500 photographs. Based on years of research, this is a practical manual as well as a beautiful garden book, presenting procedures Ken Druse has personally tested and adapted, as well as photographed step by step. “This is a book for all seasons, and will appeal to anyone intrigued by how plants grow.” —Virginia McClain Miller, Fine Gardening

Table of Contents Introduction to Plant Propagation The Essential Guide to Plant Propagation Methods and Techniques Introduction Layering Marcottee Cuttings “Striking” Cuttings Successfully Using Sand Traditional Cutting Growing Technique Benefits of Shallow Pan Technique Triple Pot Method Propagation through Buds Grafting Benefits Wedge Grafting Grafting Wax Solutions Grafting Wax Conclusion Growing Cuttings in Water Points for Water Cuttings Author Bio Publisher Introduction It is always been the nature of human beings to try to improve on nature. That is why, you can be certain that millenniums ago when some enterprising soul learned how to domesticate wild plants and grow them in his own little yard for food, shelter and wood, one fine day he decided – what is going to happen if I can grow the branch of such and such tree on such and such other tree? That means I am going to have oranges and apples in one parent tree. The start of such creative ideas must have given rise to many bizarre experimentations, most of which would fail monumentally. However, as time went by, and more and more people started to experiment, they gained more knowledge and gardening experience related to plant propagation. In the natural state, you are going to see different vegetative propagation methods through which a plant can grow. That means the plant is going to grow its own seeds, and use natural methods like air, wind and water to spread the seeds far and wide. In a strawberry, you are going to have the plant sending out long branches trailing on the soil. Stimulus of moisture causes the production of roots below a bud on a long branch. The bud is then going to send out shoots. Soon the connection between the new plant and the old plant is severed by a withering up of the intervening branch.

Introducing an artificial method of vegetative reproduction by exploiting plants' regenerative abilities, Plants from Cuttings begins with an overview of the technique and an explanation of regeneration, followed by a how-to for each type of cutting, and, finally, an A-Z of the plants that can be grown in this manner.

In horticulture, plant propagation plays an important role, as the number of plants can be rapidly multiplied, retaining the desirable characteristics of the mother plants, and shortening the bearing age of plants. There are two primary forms of plant propagation: sexual and asexual. In nature, the propagation of plants most often involves sexual reproduction, and this form is still used in several species. Over the years, horticulturists have developed asexual propagation methods that use vegetative plant parts. Innovation in plant propagation has supported breeding programs and allowed the production of high quality nursery plants with the same genetic characteristics of the mother plant, free of diseases or pests.