The Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation
The
Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation by Michael Dirr and Charles
Heuser, Jr., is an excellent reference for plant geeks to have on their
shelves. Yes, you can read between the lines there and figure
that if you're a dabbler, this book can easily go over your head, but
that's part of the fun and you'll likely grow into it.
The book is divided into
two parts --- an explanation of general propagation techniques (about
90 pages of relatively easy reading) and an encyclopedic review of the
literature detailing the best way to propagate many woody plants.
You really need to read the first part to understand the second part
--- for example, here's what they say about fig cuttings:
Got all that?
These summaries made a lot more sense once I brushed up the best
techniques for taking cuttings, which I'll summarize in this week's
lunchtime series.
In addition to the
book's density, I've already found a few species not listed in the
manual, most notably grapes and gooseberries. I suspect no manual
is 100% complete, but if you've found a reference you like better for
this type of information, I hope you'll leave a comment and let me
know. In the meantime, this is the book I'll be recommending to
intermediate-level homesteaders who want to turn one mulberry tree into
a dozen, or to sprout weird seeds that need intense stratification and
scarification.
| This post is part of our Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation
lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I've got - American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual of Practical Techniques - and I'm happy with it, it's got a lot of pictures so it's easy to flip through and understand exactly what you are looking for and helps you understand the process and possible methods.
Below is an Amazon link, it has a Click to look inside preview as well.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Horticultural-Society-Propagation-Plant/dp/0789441160