Plant Parenting

May 20, 2019
Halleck (Gardening Under Lights) offers aspiring and beginning gardeners a handy primer to nurturing fertile plant life. To help lay out elementary guidelines, she relates relevant scientific information regarding plant propagation in accessible language that won’t overwhelm amateurs. For example, she explains how plants can multiply either by seeds or by vegetative propagation (cloning), which uses existing plant tissue—stem, leaf, root, or plantlet. One of her many helpful sidebars of tips and charts concerns “Common Propagation Methods for Some Popular Plants.” Halleck runs through names for different species, varieties, hybrids, and brands; defines gardening terminology, such as chitting, a process of “soaking the seeds, usually for 24 hours” before sowing them; and lays out the tools and materials needed for plant “parenting.” Then she delves more deeply into rooting in water (she recommends rain water over chlorinated tap water) and cloning. After addressing any gardener’s greatest dread—the threat posed by pests and diseases—she ends with graduation: how to move seedlings and cuttings into the garden. Halleck’s informative resource will leave budding gardeners well-prepared to turn a few plants into many with little expense and a lot of well-informed fun.

May 15, 2019
It's fair to say that plant-owning is blooming; plants clean the air, look great on social media, and offer up green space (and even food) in almost any location. Here Halleck provides the essential tips, tools, and techniques for growing and propagating plants to keep plant owners of all skill levels in the green. She organizes the book by the four major techniques for propagation, with tips ranging from simply allowing a fallen leaf to sprout roots to the pricier and more complicated greenhouse-growing. Halleck also provides information on how and when to transplant as plants outgrow their pots, and additional reading for expanding on readers' plant-parenting knowledge. Four-color photos and easy-to-follow instructions are sure to set plant parents up for success. Additional resources, like charts for common propagation methods and information about pests and diseases prevalent in popular plants, offer at-a-glance information for the novice as well as experienced plant owners.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)