•  Making More Plants: The Science, Art, and Joy of Propagation by Ken Druse. Clarkson Potter Publishers, New York, New York, 2000. Price: $35.
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Books on plant propagation sometimes have a dry, textbookish feel to them; not so with this latest book by award-winning garden writer and photographer Ken Druse. “What really struck me about this book is that the photos are not only educational, but they are done in an artistic way,” says Stephen Bender. “The incredibly creative photography really gets you excited about the subject.” Druse covers a wide range of propagation techniques, from sowing seeds to dividing, layering, and rooting cuttings.
 

• Passionate Gardening: Good Advice for Challenging Climates by Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor. Fulcrum Publishing, Golden, Colorado, 2000. Price: $24.47.
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  This book of essays and photographs by two top American gardening personalities—both based in the Rocky Mountains—is easy to read, inspiring, and instructive for gardeners in any region. “I thought the way the authors traded off these essays really gave the book a personal touch,” notes Bender.
  Susan Eubank adds that the authors’ “expertise and passion for gardening was evident throughout the book.”

• Growing Home: Stories of Ethnic Gardening by Susan Davis Price. Photography by John Gregor. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2000. Pprice: $34.95.
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  The changing face of America is chronicled in this book, which profiles 31 gardeners from a wide variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds who have been “transplanted” to the Minneapolis area. “The kind of books that are useful to me as a librarian are ones that push knowledge forward,” says Eubank, “and this is a wonderful, inspirational book.” Noting that ethnic gardening practices are not widely written about, Bender says he enjoyed “learning a little about how people in other cultures garden.”

• The Once & Future Gardener: Writing from the Golden Age of Magazines 1900–1940 edited by Virginia Tuttle Clayton. David R. Godine, Boston, Massachusetts, 2000. Price: $28.
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  Classic garden writing from popular magazines published in the first four decades of the 20th century is offered in this anthology. Among the writers featured in the book are well-known names such as Louise Beebe Wilder and Fletcher Steele. “What I liked about this book was that it reminded us we have a long history of good garden writing,” says Marco Polo Stufano. The book is illustrated mainly with black-and-white period photographs but includes a section of color plates showing magazine covers.