Favorite book on perennial propagation?

I've been learning all I can on permaculture,  hoping to apply the concept to my own property one day soon,  but one piece of the puzzle I'm missing is knowledge of how best to propagate a diverse array of perennial plants. I feel like this is a complicated, nuanced undertaking and YouTube videos have only taken me a fraction of the way there in terms of understanding how to carry it out successfully.

Do you have a favorite book on this subject? If love to get some recommendations on the comments here!

Welcome to Permies Kate!

I use American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation, edited by Alan Toogood and published by DK Publishing in 1999. Billed as "the fully illustrated plant-by-plant manual of practical techniques", I've been using this book as my primary reference on propagation for about 20 years. I like to grow my own fruit trees and veggie varieties, and this book comes in handy all the time. Highly recommended!

Thanks! Out of curiosity,  does it include information on currents? We have a lot of them in our garden now,  but growing them was out of vogue in the 90s. Just wondering how comprehensive the list of plants is.

Yes, there is a section on currants (Ribes spp.) in the book- both the flowering and the fruiting varieties. Softwood cuttings in late spring to mid-summer, hardwood cuttings from late autumn to early winter, budding in mid- to late summer and grafting in late winter are all recommended propagation techniques in the book for currants and gooseberries.

I've had great success with hardwood cuttings in early winter, one of the easiest way to get more plants. I just cut 6 inch lengths off the bushes, leave 2 leaf buds at the top and stick them in potting soil in 1 gallon pots, leaving them on a  table outside. They usually don't need rooting hormone or gel. The cuttings usually begin rooting by late spring. Even easier is to just dig up little root sucker plants in the mulch around the base of the bushes in the spring and pot them up. Then transplant a few months later to their new location.

Good luck!

Kate proudfoot wrote:I've been learning all I can on permaculture,  hoping to apply the concept to my own property one day soon,  but one piece of the puzzle I'm missing is knowledge of how best to propagate a diverse array of perennial plants. I feel like this is a complicated, nuanced undertaking and YouTube videos have only taken me a fraction of the way there in terms of understanding how to carry it out successfully.

Do you have a favorite book on this subject? If love to get some recommendations on the comments here!

Hi Kate. That's a very interesting question. I guess my answer is no, I don't have a favourite book on propagation. I do have a fairly eclectic collection of gardening books I have collected over the years, some of which cover plant propagation techniques. There is nothing special about plants used in permacuture - they are just plants! I guess a good perennial gardening book covering techniques something like this one from the RHS would be my suggestion as a starting point.

I've successfully grown many of my 'interesting edibles' from seed. Some grow, some don't, but failure is much cheaper starting from seed!

Thank you Nancy and M.K.!