BiblioVault - Books about Native plant gardening

Birdscaping in the Midwest

A Guide to Gardening with Native Plants to Attract Birds

Mariette Nowak; Foreword by Peter H. Raven

University of Wisconsin Press, 2012

Go beyond bird feeders! Learn how to create outstanding bird habitats in your own yard with native plants that offer food, cover, and nesting sites for birds. This guide is packed with color photographs, sage advice, detailed instructions, and garden plans. It features nine different habitat gardens for hummingbirds, bluebirds, wintering birds, migrant birds, and birds that frequent prairies, wetlands, lakes, shrublands, and woodlands, along with advice about maintaining your plantings and augmenting them with nest boxes, birdbaths, misters, and perches. The information on recommended plant species includes their native ranges in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin; the birds they attract; their visual characteristics; and their cultivation. Mariette Nowak also describes how gardeners featured in this book have gone beyond their own garden gates to work for the protection and restoration of bird habitat in their neighborhoods and communities. Birdscaping in the Midwest provides many sources of further information, including publications, websites, organizations, and native plant nurseries.

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Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East

Summers, Carolyn

Rutgers University Press, 2010

Gardeners, with all good fortune and flora, are endowed with love for a hobby that has profound potential for positive change. The beautifully illustrated Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East approaches landscape design from an ecological perspective, encouraging professional horticulturalists and backyard enthusiasts alike to intensify their use of indigenous or native plants. These plants, ones that grow naturally in the same place in which they evolved, form the basis of the food web. Wildlife simply cannot continue to survive without them-nor can we.

Why indigenous plants, you may ask? What makes them so special to butterflies and bees and boys and girls? For Carolyn Summers, the answer is as natural as an ephemeral spring wildflower or berries of the gray dogwood, "As I studied indigenous plants, a strange thing happened. The plants grew on me. I began to love the plants themselves for their own unique qualities, quite apart from their usefulness in providing food and shelter for wildlife.

Emphasizing the importance of indigenous plant gardening and landscape design, Summers provides guidelines for skilled sowers and budding bloomers. She highlights . . .

The best ways to use exotic and non-indigenous plants responsibly
Easy-to-follow strategies for hosting wildlife in fields, forests, and gardens
Designs for traditional gardens using native trees, shrubs, groundcovers as substitutes for exotic plants
Examples of flourishing plant communities from freshwater streams to open meadows
How to control plant reproduction, choose cultivars, open-pollinated indigenous plants, and different types of hybrids, and practice “safe sex in the garden

From Maine to Kentucky and up and down the East Coast, Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East lays the "gardenwork" for protecting natural areas through the thoughtful planting of indigenous plants. Finally we can bask in the knowledge that it is possible to have loads of fun at the same time we are growing a better world.

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Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East, Revised and Expanded

Carolyn Summers

Rutgers University Press, 2024

As recent years have seen alarming declines of insect and bird populations in many states, more gardeners have discovered the importance of including native plants in order to nurture these pollinators and sustain local ecosystems. But when so many popular landscaping designs involve exotic cultivars and invasive plant species, how can you create a garden that is both aesthetically pleasing and ecologically responsible?

In this fully revised second edition of the classic guide Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East, gardening expert Carolyn Summers draws on the most recent research on sustainable landscaping. She is joined in this edition by her daughter, landscape designer Kate Brittenham, offering an intergenerational dialogue about the importance of using indigenous plants that preserve insect and bird habitats. The practical information they provide is equally useful for home gardeners and professionals, including detailed descriptions of keystone trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, and grasses that are native to the eastern United States. Accompanied by entirely new illustrations and updated plant lists, they offer chic yet eco-friendly landscape designs fully customized for different settings, from suburban yards to corporate office parks.

The states covered in this book are CT, DE, IA, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, TN, VA, VT, WI, and WV, as well as southern Quebec and Ontario.

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Gardening in the Desert

A Guide to Plant Selection and Care

Mary Irish

University of Arizona Press, 2000

Newcomers to the Southwest usually find that their favorite landscape plants aren't suited to the hot, dry climate. Many authors offer advice on adapting plants to the desert; now Mary Irish tells how gardeners can better adapt themselves to the challenge.

Drawing on her experience with public horticulture in the Phoenix metropolitan area, Irish explores the vexations and delights of desert gardening. She offers practical advice on plants and gardening practices for anyone who lives in the Southwest, from El Paso to Palm Springs, Tucson to Las Vegas.

Irish encourages readers who may be new to the desert—or desert dwellers who may be new to gardening—to stop struggling against heat, aridity, and poor soils and instead learn to use and appreciate the wonderful and well-adapted plants native to the desert. She shares information and anecdotes about trees, shrubs, perennials, agaves, cacti, and other plants that make gardening in the Southwest a unique experience, and provides further information about plants from other desert regions that will easily adapt to the Southwest. In addition to descriptions of plants, Irish also offers tips on planting, watering, pruning, and propagation.

For anyone who has struggled to maintain a patch of green or blanched at their water bill after unproductive irrigation, the answer to an attractive landscape may be as close as the desert around you. And for anyone who has bought a catalog guide to desert plants and not known which to choose, this book can set you on the right path. Mary Irish shows how to take heart in available plants of adaptable beauty in a book to enjoy while waiting for the next planting cycle.

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Gardening with Native Plants in the Upper Midwest

Bringing the Tallgrass Prairie Home

Judy Nauseef

University of Iowa Press, 2016

Want to have a garden that is both beautiful and biodiverse, satisfying and sustainable? In this book, long-time landscape designer Judy Nauseef shows gardeners in the upper Midwest how to restore habitat and diversity to their piece of the planet by making native plants part of well-designed, thoughtfully planned gardens. In contrast to most books about gardening with native plants, Nauseef provides specific regional information. Working against the backdrop of habitat and species losses in the tallgrass prairie states, she brings years of experience to creating landscapes that recall the now-vanished grasslands of the Midwest.

Nauseef emphasizes the need for careful planning and design to create comfortable, low-maintenance spaces that bring homeowners outside. Her designs solve problems such as a lack of privacy, shade, or sun; plan for water use; replace troublesome nonnative plants with native plants that attract pollinators; and enable homeowners to enjoy living sustainably on their land. Colorful photographs of projects around the Midwest show the wide range of possibilities, from newly created gardens using only native plants to traditional gardens that mix nonnative with native species. Whether you have a city yard, a suburban lot, or a rural acreage, there are ideas here for you, along with examples of well-designed landscapes in which native plants enhance paths, patios, pergolas, and steps.

Providing information on planting and maintaining native plants and prairies as well as seed and plant sources, organizations, and public arboretum and prairie sites, this book enables every gardener to master a new palette of plants and landforms. However small our personal landscapes, together they can slow the loss of many species of plants and wildlife and bring native flowers and grasses back where they belong. Ecologists, landscape architects and designers, master gardeners, landscape contractors, teachers, and home gardeners—everyone dedicated to conserving and improving our environment—will benefit from Nauseef’s approach.

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A Guide to Native Plants of the New York City Region

Gargiullo, Margaret B

Rutgers University Press, 2010

It is no secret that with each new office park, strip mall, and housing development that slices through the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut landscape, more and more indigenous plant habitats are being destroyed. Concrete, after all, is not a friendly neighbor to vegetative life. Less common wisdom, however, holds that plants native to this region have been disappearing rapidly for a variety of reasons, and some of the causes can be avoided, even as construction projects continue to move in.

One of the most serious threats to indigenous plants is the introduction of invasive non-native species by landscapers after new developments are built. In this unique guide, ecologist Margaret B. Gargiullo presents a detailed look at the full scope of flora that is native to this region and available for propagation. Geared specifically for landscape architects, designers, land managers, and restorationists, this book offers practical advice on how to increase the amount of indigenous flora growing in the mepolitan area, and in some cases, to reintroduce plants that have completely disappeared.

More than one hundred line drawings of plants and their specific habitats, ranging from forests to beaches, help readers visualize the full potential for landscaping in the area. A separate entry for each plant also provides detailed information on size, flower color, blooming time, and its possible uses in wetland mitigation, erosion control, and natural area restoration. Some plants are also highlighted for their ability to thrive in areas that are typically considered inhospitable to greenery.

Easily searchable by plant type or habitat, this guide is an essential reference for everyone concerned with the region's natural plant life. Since most of the plants can also be grown well beyond the New York City metropolitan area, this book will also be useful for project managers doing restoration work in most of southern New England and the mid-Atlantic region, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.

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Landscaping on the New Frontier

Waterwise Design for the Intermountain West

Susan E. Meyer, Roger K. Kjelgren, Darrel G. Morrison, and William A. Varga

Utah State University Press, 2009

A practical volume for the home or business owner on landscaping with native, drought-tolerant plants in the Rocky Mountain West. Filled with color illustrations, photos, and design sketches, over 100 native species are described, while practical tips on landscape design, water-wise irrigation, and keeping down the weeds are provided.

In this book you will learn how to use natural landscapes to inspire your own designed landscape around your business or home and yard. Included are design principles, practical ideas, and strong examples of what some homeowners have already done to convert traditional "bluegrass" landscapes into ones that are more expressive of theWest. Landscaping on the new Frontier also offers an approach to irrigation that minimizes the use of supplemental water yet ensures the survival of plants during unusually dry periods. You will learn how to combine ecological principles with design principles to create beautiful home landscapes that require only minimal resources to maintain.

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Native Plants for Southwestern Landscapes

By Judy Mielke

University of Texas Press, 1993

Winner, Xeriscape Award of Recognition, Arizona Municipal Water Users Association
Southwest Book Award, Border Regional Library Association

For gardeners who want to conserve water, the color, fragrance, shade, and lush vegetation of a traditional garden may seem like a mirage in the desert. But such gardens can flourish when native plants grow in them. In this book, Judy Mielke, an expert on Southwestern gardening, offers the most comprehensive guide available to landscaping with native plants. Writing simply enough for beginning gardeners, while also providing ample information for landscape professionals, she presents over three hundred trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, groundcovers, wildflowers, cacti, and other native plants suited to arid landscapes.

The heart of the book lies in the complete descriptions and beautiful color photographs of plants native to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan desert regions of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Mielke characterizes each plant and gives detailed information on its natural habitat, its water, soil, light, temperature, and pruning requirements, and its possible uses in landscape design.

In addition, Mielke includes informative discussions of desert ecology, growing instructions for native plants and wildflowers, and "how-to" ideas for revegetation of disturbed desert areas using native plants. She concludes the book with an extensive list of plants by type, including those that have specific features such as shade or fragrance. She also supplies a list of public gardens that showcase native plants.

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