Book Description
California Native Plants for the Garden is a comprehensive resource that features more than 500 of the best California native plants for gardening in Mediterranean-climate areas of the world. Authored by three of the state's leading native-plant horticulturists and illustrated with 450 color photos, this reference book also includes chapters on landscape design, installation, and maintenance. Detailed lists of recommended native plants for a variety of situations and appendices with information on places to see native plants and where to buy them are also provided.
Customer Reviews:
Great resource.......2007-08-19
I bought this book several weeks ago and am very happy with it! Lots of helpful and useful information...and great photos too. This book is definitely a great resource if you are interested in landscaping with California native plants.
Excellent jumping off point.......2006-11-10
As I've finally come to terms with the fact that an English garden just won't flourish in Los Angeles, this book has replaced my sadness with optimism. I don't know a lot about plants, and I've found this book an invaluable resource as I set about my plans to completely revamp my garden.
Boy! I miss California so much!.......2006-10-16
Native California plants have their own way of showing natutual beauty. This book catches the spirit of these plants. Would like to see more closeup pictures so that I can learn to identify them.
Great reference book supplement.......2006-10-07
Easy to read, concentrates on native plants so can narrow search, good addition to the library.
Wonderful book!.......2006-09-30
This book distinguishes itself by offering wonderful color photgraphs of most of the plants it discusses. This is a significant advantage for neophyte native plant gardeners. Other valuable and well-respected books on the same topic, such as Growing California Native Plants by Marjorie G. Schmidt, don't offer even close to the same pictorial experience.
Don't think that it's all about the photgraphs, however. The rest of the book is put together well and stands side by side with any other California native plant guides for completeness of information.
Book Description
Inspirational, practical, and easy to use, this book was created with the aim of conveying the awesome diversity and beauty of California's native plants and demonstrating how they can be brought into ecologically sound, attractive, workable, and artful gardens. Structured around major California plant communities--bluffs, redwoods, the Channel Islands, coastal scrub, grasslands, deserts, oak woodlands, mixed evergreen woodlands, riparian, chaparral, mountain meadows, and wetlands--the book's twelve chapters each include sample plans for a native garden design accompanied by original drawings, color photographs, a plant list, tips on successful gardening with individual species, and more. Both residential and professional gardeners will learn the benefits of going native with gardens that require less water and fewer fertilizers, attract wildlife, engage the senses, create a sense of place, and, at the same time, preserve our rich natural heritage.
Designing Native California Gardens includes:
* More than 600 selected native species recommended for the garden
* More than 300 photographs of native plants, natural plant communities, and residential native gardens
* Recommended places to visit for viewing each plant community
Customer Reviews:
Practical Orientation to Natives.......2007-10-10
-We need more books like this to make Native Gardening more amenable. What "Landscapers' Challenge" did for Landscaping, this book will hopefully start to do to open up the still rather arcane world of Native Plants. It is practical and full of detailed, appropriate, high quality photographs of sample materials. Visually on par with "Landscape Plants for Western Regions" by Perry.
The Perfect Book for Any Californian Who Wants to Save the Environment in Their Own Backyard.......2007-09-26
This book is excellent, with many good photographic examples of complete native landscape. It also set for an excellent philosophy for landscape design for the both the use of native and non-native plants. However it really shouldn't be thought of as a complete source for native gardening. I would also suggest that you pick up 'California Native Plants for the Garden' by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O'Brien. Even between these two books all of the possibilities for beautiful California native plants and landscapes created using them have not yet been fully explored, but these books are an excellent start.
best book for gardeners.......2007-09-06
This is the book I have been waiting for! It has all the information to learn about and appreciate the value and beauty of native gardening. Practical and inspirational, with lovely photos and illustrations. The book helps the reader incorporate the beauty found in nature in a home plot. If I were going to buy one book about making/keeping a garden, this would be it.
Colorful new gardening book focuses on state's native plants.......2007-08-04
Bay Area botanist Glenn Keator and San Jose horticulturalist and designer Alrie Middlebrook are on a mission. They want to convince Californians to plan and create gardens with native plant species in mind.
Why?
As Keator writes, "the most compelling reason is to create a sense of place. & What better way is there to remind ourselves of this special geographic region we call home than to recreate, in our own yards, the native gardens found in the wild? Anyone can have a garden with roses (mostly hybrids from China and Europe), petunias (from South America), fuchsias (from mountainous South and Central America), and impatiens (many from Africa)."
Besides, says Keator, native plants are already adapted to the area and likely will survive. They attract native pollinators and reduce the amount of water and pesticides required. Keator and Middlebrook make a convincing case in "Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens" ($27.50 in paperback from Phyllis M. Faber/University of California Press).
More than 300 full-color photographs enrich the book and several appendices provide sources of natives and a planting calendar.
The book is a practical exploration of a dozen plant communities in the state, several of which are well represented locally. Each chapter begins with an overview and is anchored by a diagram and explanation of one of Middlebrook's own garden projects or concepts.
Readers are provided with design notes, a scope of work for the given project and a rich compilation of plants to use. The goal is not to duplicate Middlebrook's work but rather to appreciate the beauty that can be created using California natives.
The authors conclude their chapters with an annotated list of "places to visit" to see the native plant communities in the wild. The Oak Woodland chapter, for example, pictures a "carpet of Ithuriel's spear (Triteleia laxa)" on Table Mountain; readers are directed to Loafer Creek State Park at Lake Oroville to observe "blue oak woodland mixed with gray pines and scattered interior live oaks." Keator notes that "many fortunate gardeners already have oaks on their property, yet many ornamentals require the summer water that slowly kills these magnificent trees. California's oak woodlands provide a fine palette of plants perfectly adapted to grow under oaks."
In the Grasslands chapter, Bear Valley in Colusa County features "glueseed, goldfields, royal larkspur, creamcups and owl's clover"; Feather Falls, an example of mixed-evergreen forest, presents such understory plants as western mock-orange and Sierra fawn lily.
And then there's the ponderosa pine. A sense of place, indeed.
Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.
Great guidebook!.......2007-06-16
As a beginner with CA natives I found this to be the book I was seeking. There are good explanations of the state's plant communities, examples of design plans, guidance on how to implement a plan for that community and good photos of real landscaping and the plants. The plant selections presented for each community have good descriptions and and seem from my weekly increasing experience to be those that succeed in home landscaping. I refer to it all the time as I take on areas of my yard to restore. North, south, east, west our yards are complex. This book helps one figure them out relative to CA natives.
Book Description
Elegantly organized by season, this lyrical yet practical guide to backyard restoration gardening celebrates the beauty, the challenges, and the rewards of growing native plants at home. Judith Larner Lowry, winner of the prestigious John Burroughs award, here builds on themes from her best-selling Gardening with a Wild Heart, which introduced restoration gardening as a new way of thinking about land and people. Drawing on her experiences in her own garden, Lowry offers guidance on how to plan a garden with birds, plants, and insects in mind; how to shape it with trees and shrubs, paths and trails, ponds, and other features; and how to cultivate, maintain, and harvest seeds and food from a diverse array of native annuals and perennials. Working in passionate collaboration with the scrub jays, quail, ants, and deer who visit her garden, and inspired by other gardeners, including some of the women pioneers of native plant horticulture, Lowry shares the delights of creating site-specific, ever-changing gardens that can help us better understand our place in the natural world.
Book Description
This lyrical and articulate mix of the practical and the poetic combines personal story, wildland ecology, restoration gardening practices, and native plant horticulture. Judith Lowry's voice and experiences make a rich matrix for essays that include discussions of wildflower gardening, the ecology of native grasses, wildland seed-collecting, principles of natural design, and plant/animal interactions. Though this book is based on California gardens, readers from all parts of the country will be inspired and informed by these examples of gardening to include "the larger garden beyond the fence."
Gardening with a Wild Heart promises to be a classic for lovers of nature writing, gardeners, bioregionalists, and students and professionals in horticulture, landscape design, and ecological restoration.
Customer Reviews:
Not enough.......2005-04-12
I was dissapointed when I recieved this book in the mail. I was expecting a native gardening guide book, with perhaps some photos of native plants, descriptions of how natives can be used in the garden and such. Instead I recieved a book warning of the enormous dangers of planting exotic, non native species in one's back yard. The book is heart felt and well written. If you are not convinced that planting natives is the way to go, you will be after reading this book. Unfortunatly, you probably won't be much further along in knowing how or which or where.
A book every California gardener should read.......2004-01-11
A Californian living overseas, I happened to find this book while looking for ideas for a piece of property I own in California. Initially I had "cottage garden" in mind; later, my thinking evolved to more exotic tropical plants. This wonderful book was the first step in my complete conversion to the native plant movement. California is an ecological "island" with an incredible richness of native plants: 6,000 species, of which something like 2,000 live nowhere else. Yet these have been decimated by exotic weeds, development and large-scale agriculture. We should be proud of the native California plants that are now prized by landscapers and gardeners all over the world: the redwood, douglas fir, monterey pine, lilac, and all wildflowers especially the poppy, our State Flower (to name but a few). Yet despite the growing momentum of the native plant movement in the state, many gardeners are indifferent to the debate.
Look for the tufted 6-foot stalks of pampas grass as you drive around California: this aggressive invader from Peru is still being planted by gardeners and landscapers. Consider that eight million acres in the state (and growing) are covered with yellow star thistle, another exotic weed. Aggressive non-native plants out-compete natives (even to the point of extinction) and contribute to the decline of the environment, often in the form of soil erosion.
The most important lesson from this thought-provoking book is that we are interconnected, and the decisions we take on our postage-stamp properties affect the entire environment. We can make a difference. What we do on our little plots can do a lot to restore the ecological well-being of the entire state. As we see the birds and other animals - creatures that evolved specifically for our native flora - return to reclaim the land, parcel by parcel, we can say we have done something positive for the state of California.
Not Just About Gardening.......2001-11-11
"Gardening With a Wild Heart" is a wonderful book. Even if you could care less about gardening or native plants, it is still a great read. There is so much in here about different ways of life, past and present, in unique Marin County. Open it to any page and you will find fascinating information on a wide variety of subjects, from actual recipes, to native American philsophy. This book fascinated me for hours, and that rarely happens for me with non-fiction books.
Transformational!.......2001-06-11
I am new to gardening. I was initially seduced by the pictures of California gardens in Sunset magazine. Over the long term, I saw its approach to be only about style and appearance and pleasing the humans. This book on the other hand connects backyard gardening with the wild, with wildlife, and gave me a reason for gardening: for the denizens of the garden -- the birds, bees, butterflies, insects, and squirrels. If you are looking for a how-to book, get Marjorie Schmidt's Gardening with California Native Plants. The definitive California native plant picture identification book hasn't been published, but you can get a lot out of Vern Yadon's Wildflowers of Monterey County.
Great book, but missing pictures for identification.......2000-04-11
I live in Southern California, and have begun to take an interest in planting more native species in my yard and garden. I picked this book up at the Getty Museum after visiting their beautiful gardens.
This bug is full of important information, and taught me (to my chagrin) that I had been guilty of planting lots of invasive alien species in my yard.
Armed with a new resolve to "go native" I set about trying to find and identify the many native plants she describes in her book. Unfortunately, the book has only a limited set of color plates showing some native flowers. And even those images generally show multiple plants, with a description such as "california poppie, five-spot, and baby blue eyes near coyote scrub, California fescue and native bunch grass". While this is helpful, I was unable to tell which plant was which (aside from the poppies).
To use this book to its fullest, you need a good pictorial guide to California plants. Unfortunately I don't know of one. Hopefully a more knowledgable reader can point me in the right direction.
Average customer rating:
- Day-in-the-Life book scores high marks
- The title of this book doesnýt match the contents.
- Perfect for people who always wonder why
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Paradise by Design: Native Plants and the New American Landscape
Kathryn Phillips
Manufacturer: North Point Pr
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ASIN: 0865475199 |
Amazon.com
Like Phillips's previous book, Tracking the Vanishing Frogs, this series of essays on the moral issues relating to garden design explores the effects human interest has on the objects of its attention. Wild or native plant gardening is an increasingly popular trend, but its ramifications are not always the kind that logic might suggest. In using native plants, we hope to create ecologically sensible and appropriate gardens that are easy to care for. When the nursery industry responds with a furious backlash of recrimination, why are we surprised? Advocates for using as many regional natives as possible in public landscapes are accused of being plant nazis--and as it turns out, that appellation is occasionally correct. Nobody intended the native plant movement to trigger wholesale destruction of habitat in order to provide gardens with eco-cool plants, yet how many gardeners insist upon learning where their native plants really come from? Phillips's touch is light yet deft, and her reach is broad without losing focus. There is no strident anger here, but her interviews with botanists, horticulturists, designers, and gardeners address dozens of intriguing and complex issues. Few books this provocative are this fun to read. --Ann Lovejoy
Book Description
Every day when she arrives at work, landscape architect Joni Janecki faces a daunting task: to create a piece of paradise for her clients. For this young, up-and-coming designer, that often means bucking mainstream design and gardening culture. Janecki rejects the expansive lawns and tightly clipped shrubs that have become the standards of America's created landscape. Instead, she tries to introduce the natural world to her clients by landscaping their homes, parks, and businesses with the native plants that the larger gardening culture often ignores.
Kathryn Phillips follows Janecki as she struggles against nursery fads, anxious clients, pest plants, pesky budgets, and self-doubts to design paradise. The result, in the tradition of our best science and nature journalists, is an engrossing narrative which illuminates the complex forces that shape so much of the natural world we see each day. She introduces us to plant promoters, who want to carpet the world in roses, and nursery retailers who have to adapt to ever-changing fads.
By the book's end, readers will be rooting for Janecki and seeing the created landscape around them-and its often tenuous relationship with nature-with new eyes.
Customer Reviews:
Day-in-the-Life book scores high marks.......2004-03-28
I loved this book because it really offered insight into the life of a landscape architect. It showed well the struggles the architect must overcome but it also illustrates what we (who are entering this field) can expect to face. For me, it was a wonderful narrative in the "day-in-the-life" category and one of the best books I have ever read. I'm only sorry there aren't more like it.
The title of this book doesnýt match the contents........1999-01-29
Or is it just a book that goes halfway?
I liked Kathryn Phillips first book, Tracking the Vanishing Frogs: An Ecological Mystery. It had some great investigative storytelling and raised both interesting questions and thoughts.
Unfortunately this new title is not as compelling a read. This book meanders and winds through three different landscape projects. The untitled chapters, sidetrack and discuss many issues, though few of the issues deal directly with native plants as the title and book flaps promise. It might have been better titled: `A day in the life of a Landscape Architect.' It is more about how we ended up making everything around us look the way it does, and the way the landscape industry forces its commerce on the land. While these issues have a relationship to the use of native plants in the landscape the author makes little attempt to connect the reasons.
A large amount of the book spent on drawing plans, hardscapes, meeting logistics, and what car everyone drives. The loose structure made it difficult for me to understand why certain issues were being raised. It does address some interesting horticultural issues but really doesn't relate them to native plants. Lots of the issues it does raise for natives are the same for all plants. Most growers don't like slow growing plants, whether they are native or not. The few pages that do address native plants are interesting but don't add much depth. I feel this book doesn't really educate the value of native plants. Lack of scientific plant names adds to the feel of shallow content. The one time a plant is named by Genius species, it's incorrect (Page 210 - Stipa purpa should be Stipa pulchra.)
Many other books have truly covered the issues of native plants in a more direct fashion. I would strongly recommend Sarah Stein's work (Noah's garden, Planting Noah's garden) if you're interested in native plants in your landscape. Also, Gardening With a Wild Heart : Restoring California's Native Landscapes at Home by Judith Larner Lowry. They both communicate more clearly the real value of a native landscape.
Perfect for people who always wonder why.......1998-12-27
This book is for the intellectually curious gardener. Thought provoking. Should be on the reading list of native plant gardeners.
Customer Reviews:
Practical Advice on California Native Gardening.......1999-12-21
This book is essential to any California gardener who wants to learn how to introduce some of California's many beautiful native perennials into his or her garden. Mr. Keator, a guru of native gardening in California, offers practical advice on selection, propagation and culture of the most garden-worthy native perennials. The text is interesting (riveting for native enthusiasts) and well-written. Only the black-and-white line drawings and lack of photos leave the reader wanting more.
Average customer rating:
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Native plants for California gardens
Lee W Lenz
Manufacturer: Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden
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The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus (Mnemosyne Ser.: Suppl.89)
B. C. McGing
Manufacturer: Brill Academic Publishers
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ASIN: 9004075917 |
Books:
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- Dear Pam ... Teach Me Your Quick Quilting Techniques
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