Noah's Garden

[rainbowgardener]

I really think we need a new book club discussion to get us through the winter. I highly recommend Noah's Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards by Sara Stein.

I think EVERY gardener should read this book (and preferably also the companion to it Planting Noah's Garden). They are very well written and very inspiring on how much difference we can make by planting native wildlife friendly gardens, with her journey from being a traditional lawn/exotic flowers/chemicals kind of gardener with the how and why of it all. I find myself wanting to suggest it every time someone writes in talking about planting 800 of the same species of tree or a 15 foot hedge of invasive exotic stuff...

Please?

[webmaster]

That's a good suggestion. I would like to read along!

[DoubleDogFarm]

Thanks Roger

[tomf]

One of my landscaping goals is to make my land wild life friendly. The idea of a suburban landscape that encourages birds and some wildlife is a bit different than doing so where I live. By planting lawn and letting the clover run wild I have given the rabbets, deer and elk food in the winter. The deer have grown so used to us being here that they don't stray off to far when we are around. I have dead snags for the tree nesting birds to make nests in, and they have bugs for the birds to eat. In my case opening up the land in places helped the wild life. I avoid the use of chemicals as I feel it hurts the animals. I have planted flowers and fruit trees that give the bees and Hummingbirds food. So even though this book sounds like a book for suburban gardens, it may have some good information I could use, do you think it may be worth me reading?

[rainbowgardener]

absolutely. She talks a lot about transition zones. The edges between woods and lawn/meadow or other transition zones like that have the most diversity and are best habitat for a lot of creatures.

[Joyfirst]

Sounds like a very interesting book, I will check my library out to see, if they have it.