In article ,
Janet Baraclough wrote:

The message
from "Dan L." contains these words:

For winter reading I just got this book. A very interesting book! So Far!
"Creative Propagation 2ed by Peter Thompson" ISBN-10: 0881926817
This book is has my brown thumb getting a little sore. This book is
packed with information and is going to take me a while to absorb.

Expanding my garden horizon here. Learning to make new plants from
cuttings. I want lots of shrubs - cheap, time is not important. This
book has my brain cooking (bad). It talks about these Plant Cloning
Machines. I am hard pressed to find any negative information about these
machines. Other machines are in the hundreds of dollars. I could buy
five "Daisy 8" machines over the "Power Cloner 45" or the "EZ Clone
Machine - 30". Are they worth getting?

I wouldn't bother. Many garden shrubs will root perfectly well if you
pull off a twig and stick it in the ground.

Slightly more demanding ones, will root perfectly well if you pull off
a twig and stick it in a small pot of compost.
A book will show you which bit of twig and tell you when. Do a dozen
cuttings of the same thing and probably at least one will grow. Or all
12.
It's so EASY, gardeners invariably end up with far more plants than
they can use and give them away or swap them.

Janet

See I am not home all the time.
Do these cuttings need misting several times per day?
Will a heated frame with sand work just as well or is it over the top?

I plan on making a heated propagating frame filled with sand and put a
cheap misting system in it. The book "Creative Propagation" and my
latest issue of "Hobby Farms" magazine shows how build one. Book says a
propagating machine is nice to have. But I do not want to waste what
little money I have.

I highly disagree on one thing you stated
gardeners invariably end up with far more plants than they can use

I have 12 acres to play with. I want hundreds of shrubs and many more in
plants. I want to build several garden rooms over time. Large shrubs can
do that. I want to create rooms for the bee apiaries, hen house,
vegetable and cutting flower garden. Like many people today, I find my
funds are getting smaller and smaller. If I bought the plants I would be
spending thousands. I want to spend only few hundred. The heated frame
alone will cost about one hundred, give or take. Wire fences are ugly.
For now I can only dream of that really nice green house

So far two posters say no machine is needed.
So far no one in rec.gardens has a propagation machine.
Do I want to be the first?

Enjoy Life... Dan

--
Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.