Grasses have always scared me. Too many species, the flowers too small, the terminology strange and unfamiliar. As an amateur naturalist and very part-time at that, as the demands of work and family limited my wanderings, I had come to terms with the fact that I’d die without knowing my grasses. No longer. Lauren Brown and Ted Elliman’s little book, Grasses, Sedges, Rushes: An Identification Guide, has changed everything.
In The Nature of Oaks, Doug Tallamy hopes to encourage appreciation of the diversity in the web of life by focusing on a single tree that began as an acorn he planted in a pot and transplanted into his yard. Now 18 years old, still very young for an oak tree, Tallamy observes the tree and the many forms of life it supports then shares a month-by-month record of a few visitors.
I never imagined that I would become a farmer. In my teenage years, as my race consciousness evolved, I got the message loud and clear that Black activists were concerned with gun violence, housing discrimination, and education reform, while white folks were concerned with organic farming and environmental conservation.
Interest in native plants and sustainable landscaping has exploded over the last decade. Through our UConn Extension Sustainable Turf & Landscape program, we provide practical science-based information to support the sustainability goals of Connecticut green industry professionals and home gardeners. With that in mind, we developed a free online guide of 44 pages of plant lists for every location matched with vibrant photographs.
As the populations of the Monarch (Danaus plexippus) have dropped precipitously in size in recent years, public engagement towards saving the Monarch is increasing thanks to education programming. This book provides gardeners, both novice and experienced, the information they need to make their home gardens or community spaces valuable parts of the Monarch’s global support system.
Keeping an orderly garden while planting native plantings can be challenging. Seeking intentionality in my gardening practice and hungry for new ideas, I picked up The Ecological Gardener: How to Create Beauty and Biodiversity from the Soil Up. This well-organized book provides a very clear philosophy of ecological gardening, along with many helpful tutorials and ideas.
Dealing with deer is one of the biggest design challenges in gardening. Deer limit the design plant palette and cause untold damage, especially in the fall and winter. They can require costly fences, increase the maintenance burden, and exacerbate health risks from Lyme disease. This book has a lot of good deer guidance, especially to those new to dealing with deer.
The Gardener’s Botanical (PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS) by Ross Bayton is a delight for anyone who has ever been curious about plant names. It is beautifully bound and presented, and its gorgeous old botanical prints from the Royal Horticultural Society on every page make it a sheer pleasure to leaf through.
In The Business of Botanicals (Chelsea Green Publishing), author and anthropologist Ann Armbrecht embarks on a quest to understand and reveal the processes that bring botanical products from farms to the consumer.
Last year I found a copy of The Closing Circle, Nature, Man & Technology by ecologist Barry Commoner. I started rereading it and was stunned to find in the first chapter, even before he states the Four Laws of Ecology, Commoner discusses the fundamental interaction of nutrients, humus, soil microbes, plant health, and climate! What is amazing is the book was published in 1971!!
Reviewed by Margot Taylor
You’ve got to love people who can find, understand, and interpret patterns and relationships. Judith Schwartz is this type of person as I’ve learned reading her new book, The Reindeer Chronicles. An engaging and skilled storyteller, Judith lays out an ecological rehabilitation process for our broken ecosystems, communities, and financial foundations. And she shows us how the power of inspiration can lift the human spirit, open the heart, and restore our American “can do” attitude.
Written by Kim Eierman, Published by Quarry Books, (2020)
Reviewed by Georgia Harris
I first heard about Kim Eierman’s book The Pollinator Victory Garden at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown. While Eierman could not have predicted that the release of her book would coincide with a pandemic, the timing is particularly appropriate as more people are finding time to work in and enjoy their yards and gardens.
