Propagating Plants: How to Grow Plants for Free

Fill your garden with beautiful plants for next-to-nothing

Do you long to grow your own plants from scratch? This complete guide from the experts at the RHS will teach you how to propagate virtually every type of plant.

If you’re a thrifty gardener who wants more plants for free, then this book is perfect for you! From fruit trees and ornamental shrubs to exotic orchids and succulents, get all the info you’ll need to propagate more than 1,500 garden plants.

Crammed with hundreds of step-by-step tutorials and clear advice, ranging from straightforward and simple to more in-depth and challenging. The rating system in the plant-by-plant A-Z dictionaries provide you with a quick reference to the relative ease or difficulty of each method of propagation.

How long do your seedlings need to germinate? What makes a healthy stem cutting? How do you know what type of rootstock to use when grafting plants? Find out the answer to these questions and more in the most comprehensive guide to propagating plants ever published.

Alan Toogood (Editor-in-Chief) is an experienced horticulturist. Having trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he went on to study at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden at Wisley, Surrey. He works as a freelance writer and journalist, writing for such magazines as Gardener’s Chronicle, Amateur Gardening, RHS’s own magazine The Garden, and Greenhouse, of which he was the Editor for many years.

With a wealth of expertise behind them, other contributors to this book include the herb expert Jekka McVicar, Vice President of the RHS and President of the Herb Society, known for her organic herb garden in Gloucestershire; renowned orchid expert Wilma Rittershausen; John Mattock, whose family boasts a 175-year history of rose growing; and former Executive Vice President of the RHS, Jim Gardiner.The 2019 edition of the book was revised by Julian Shaw, a collaborator on several DK gardening books, including RHS A-Z of Garden Plants.