Few sights are as charming as a hummingbird hovering over cardinal flowers in your backyard or a butterfly lighting on the black-eyed Susans potted on your balcony. Yet pollinators do more than beguile us: they are key to a healthy environment. With many pollinators threatened and their habitats disappearing, gardeners can make a real difference by planting native species that support these amazing creatures. The trick is knowing what species to plant and how to help them thrive.

If you're a gardener (or aspiring gardener) in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, or Great Lakes region, this beautiful 4-color guide will become your go-to reference to the most beneficial plants in your area. It includes profiles of more than 300 native plants, featuring lovely illustrations and photos, information on blooming periods, exposure, soil moisture, and good plant companions, as well as how each species supports specific pollinators.

You'll learn more about common plants you thought you knew and be introduced to species you may have never encountered before. Blooming flowers, native grasses, trees, shrubs, vines, and plants for rain and pond gardens are all included. White Baneberry, Woodland Strawberry, Boneset, Virginia Mountain Mint, Smooth Aster, and many others may find their way from these pages to your soil.

While understanding specific plants is key, so too are growing strategies. Here you'll learn how to prepare your site and find sample garden designs, whether your growing space is an apartment balcony, a residential yard, or a community garden. Throughout, you'll discover the power of plants to not only enrich your personal environment but to support the pollinators necessary for a thriving planet.

Going green in the garden has never been easier with Nancy Birtwhistle's sustainable, eco-friendly tips that will help you make the most of your space, and what it can grow. Whether you have a sprawling garden, a modest patch of grass or just a spare windowsill, The Green Gardening Handbook has over 100 tips will help you embrace the joy of growing and eating from your own garden.

This beautifully illustrated guide is packed with advice on everything from composting, clothing and basic equipment to seasonal recipes and guides to freezing, storing and preserving that will help you save money and reduce waste. This practical book from the former Great British Baking Show winner and Sunday Times bestselling author of Clean & Green and Green Living Made Easy is for anyone, green-fingered or not, looking to discover the delights of growing and eating food they've grown themselves.

'Getting out in the garden helps us stay healthy - and it helps our planet too. Mother Nature wants you to succeed, plants actually want to grow - those seeds are there patiently ready and waiting. All we need to do is just have a go.' Nancy x

When Elizabeth Lawrence's A Southern Garden was first published in 1942, it was the only book to address the needs of gardeners in Zones 7 and 8--an area that ranges from Richmond to San Antonio and on up the West Coast to Seattle. Although many books are now available for this region, gardeners frequently return to A Southern Garden for inspiration.

More than eighty years later, Lawrence's information is still fresh, her style of writing still delightful. She not only gives practical advice but manages to convey what it is about gardening that draws so many people to it. This new edition of A Southern Garden will be treasured by all who love gardens and good writing.

In conversation with William Baldwin. Emily Whaley's garden on Church Street in Charleston, South Carolina, may be the most visited private garden in the country. And no wonder. It is the life's work of a vibrant, sociable, opinionated, determined, forceful woman who has spent the last eighty-five years cultivating whatever life offered her. Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden captures and preserves Emily Whaley's distinctive voice and braces us with a clear understanding of how one might cultivate a practical personal philosophy alongside one's garden.

An indispensable and lavishly illustrated guide to creating a garden that attracts and sustains butterflies

Butterfly gardening creates habitats that support butterflies, connecting us with some of the most beautiful creatures in the natural world and bringing new levels of excitement and joy to gardening. In this engaging and accessible guide, lavishly illustrated with more than two hundred color photographs and maps, accomplished butterfly gardener Jane Hurwitz presents essential information on how to choose and cultivate plants that will attract a range of butterflies to your garden and help sustain all the stages of their life cycles.

An indispensable resource for aspiring and experienced butterfly gardeners alike, Butterfly Gardening is the most gardener-friendly source on the subject, covering all the practical details needed to create a vibrant garden habitat that fosters butterflies. It tells you which plants support which butterflies, depending on where you live; it describes what different butterflies require in the garden over the course of their lives; and it shows you how to become a butterfly watcher as well as a butterfly gardener.

While predominantly recommending regionally native plants, the book includes information on non-native plants. It also features informative interviews with experienced butterfly gardeners from across the United States. These gardeners share a wealth of information on plants and practices to draw butterflies to all kinds of gardens--from small suburban gardens to community plots and larger expanses.

Whether you are a gardener who wants to see more butterflies in your garden, a butterfly enthusiast who wants to bring that passion to the garden, or someone who simply wants to make their garden or yard friendlier to Monarchs or other butterflies, this is a must-have guide.

• An essential guide for aspiring and experienced butterfly gardeners
• Encourages readers to rethink gardening choices to support butterflies and other pollinators in their gardens and communities
• Introduces gardeners to butterfly watching
• Includes regional lists of plant species that are time-proven to help sustain butterflies and their caterpillars
• Features informative interviews with expert butterfly gardeners from across the United States

British journalist William Cobbett's 1819 work is considered one of the first classics of American gardening literature, written specifically about his time farming on Long Island, New York. For modern day gardeners, Cobbett's 19th century ideas on self-reliance, family strength through agriculture, and gardening before chemicals and genetic modification are certainly timely - and organic!

Celebrates the Du Pont family heritage of land stewardship and horticultural creativity

Renowned as the first family of American horticulture, the du Ponts created magnificent landscapes and gardens that complement the verdant, rolling lands of the Brandywine Valley. Five of their estates - Hagley, Nemours, Mt. Cuba, Winterthur, and Longwood Gardens - are open to the public, each a showplace of formal plantings juxtaposed with carefully nurtured natural woodland. Larry Lederman's photographs capture the essence of these sites, moving through the seasons and through the day from dawn to dusk.

Hailing from the world's harshest climates, the iconic edelweiss, vibrant blue forget-me-nots, delicate saxifrages, and stunning gentians are just a few of the exciting alpines that you will discover in this book. Short detailed descriptions and images reveal more than 400 species and cultivars, providing an informative and practical overview of cultivating alpines whatever the size of your garden or patio.

Written for the gardener, enthusiast and horticulturist

Backyard Farming For Beginners Are You Ready To Learn How To Create A Mini Farm In Your Own Backyard?If So You've Come To The Right Place Whether you've got a tiny backyard or an acre of spare space to work with this fantastic guide will help you start your backyard farm today Sustainable, organic and self sufficient - the way ever urban farm should be. Ready to learn more?Here's A Preview Of What This Backyard Farming Book Contains...An Introduction To Farming - The Basics You Need To KnowStarting Your Farm With Simple StepsDifferent Methods Of Backyard Farming Including The Pros & ConsUnderstanding Container & Vertical Farming How To Take Care Of Your Crops Correctly (Must Read )When And How To Harvest The Fruits Of Your LaborAnd Much, Much More

Author Dr. William Allan Plummer's interest in nature was stimulated one winter by the sight of snowbirds, slate-colored juncos, in the family's backyard in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. That same spring, he spotted the yellow-bellied sapsucker during its migration, and he was hooked. In Fronds and Anemones, he offers a collection of nature-based essays and articles, most of which appeared in the quarterly newsletter, Screeches, of Spencer Crest Nature Center, as well as in several other publications.

Fronds and Anemones begins with Plummer's accounts of bird watching as a Boy Scout and then spreads to a love of native plants. This interest continued and increased when he bought a wooded lot on which to build their home, and he describes the evolution of the garden and the gardener. He covers a plethora of subjects--from ferns, to native wildflowers, to the shrubs and trees on his lot, the vagaries of weather, shade gardening, building paths and stone walls, and trips to natural areas and gardens.

Concluding with a collection of garden quotes, Fronds and Anemones presents a varied look at plants, birds, and gardens and addresses a host of topics of interest to gardeners and nature enthusiasts.

Tips On How to Forage for Mushrooms

If you want to enter the world of foraging for wild mushrooms, making a step towards relying less on store bought foods that are filled with chemical additives. These additives are used not just in the cultivation but also in the preservation of foods. If you are concerned about the potential hazards both short and long term of these choosing to go for an organic food choice such as mushrooms is a healthy choice. Foraging can be a great way to minimize the cost that we as humans put on the planet. With concerns for the environment arising daily such as global warming it is becoming more unstable and unpredictable. It is a good time to start foraging for food and even consider taking up your own organic garden in your backyard.

You can enjoy the art of foraging, being able to go out and identify, and gather edible species of mushrooms to add to your menu that are free of chemical additives. Mushrooms offer many benefits to our health, various species specializing in offering an assortment of benefits. Some species are known to be great at helping to stop cancer tumors in their tracks and help build our immune systems up etc. This book will give you some great tips and suggestions on how to prepare for foraging for wild mushrooms and what the do's and don'ts are and so much more

The purpose of this book is twofold; it combines the necessary information for the successful growing of evergreens, together with suggestions for their uses in the planting scheme. The book opens with a discussion of the landscape value of these important woody ornamentals in garden-making. This is followed by a chapter on espalier, bonsai, and topiary work. The balance of Part I discusses the subjects of planting, pruning, mulching, and winter protection. Easy-to-follow directions for plant propagation and a chapter on garden enemies conclude this portion of the book. In Part II the cultural requirements of each evergreen are given individually. Both tree and shrub forms are combined in one volume; approximately 500 species and varieties are included. For the convenience of the reader, the evergreen cultures are given in alphabetical order, regardless of their classification. The heights mentioned must necessarily be approximate, for these are influenced by climate, location, soil, and maintenance. Ordinarily only a limited number reach their full height in the average home garden. Because of the different climatic conditions in the country, the most propitious seasons for planting and pruning naturally vary widely; whether or not to mulch is another question that differs with the locality. These questions are answered in Parts III and IV, which consist of Reports on Evergreens from the States and from Canada. Here the reader will find specific advice on these subjects given by an authoritative source (or sources) in his state. In addition, some of the evergreens that do best in each state are listed. To obtain this information, all the states in continental United States and parts of Canada were contacted by a questionnaire covering these points; the response was heart-warming. This report brings to light the sharp differences in some of the cultural practices in certain states, and also in the provinces of Canada that were approached. Frequently conditions vary considerably in the same state, not only because of the climatic differences (although these are of great importance), but also because of the local conditions of soil, temperature, moisture, and exposure; for example, sometimes evergreens that are not winter-hardy inland can be grown close to the coast where temperatures are usually more moderate. Because of these reasons, before purchasing evergreens recommended for your state in general, it is advisable to consult your nurseryman or your County Agricultural Agent as to their suitability for your particular area.

An altogether different kind of book on English gardens--the first of its kind--a look at the history of England's magnificent gardens as a history of Britain itself, from the seventeenth-century gardens of Charles II to those of Prince Charles today.

In this rich, revelatory history, Sir Roderick Floud, one of Britain's preeminent economic historians, writes that gardens have been created in Britain since Roman times but that their true growth began in the seventeenth century; by the eighteenth century, nurseries in London took up 100 acres, with ten million plants (!) that were worth more than all of the nurseries in France combined.

Floud's book takes us through more than three centuries of English history as he writes of the kings, queens, and princes whose garden obsessions changed the landscape of England itself, from Stuart, Georgian, and Victorian England to today's Windsors.

Here are William and Mary, who brought Dutch gardens and bulbs to Britain; William, who twice had his entire garden lowered in order to see the river from his apartments; and his successor, Queen Anne, who, like many others since, vowed to spend little on her gardens and instead spent millions. Floud also writes of Frederick, Prince of Wales, the founder of Kew Gardens, who spent more than $40,000 on a single twenty-five-foot tulip tree for Carlton House; Queen Victoria, who built the largest, most advanced and most efficient kitchen garden in Britain; and Prince Charles, who created and designed the gardens of Highgrove, inspired by his boyhood memories of his grandmother's gardens.

We see Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who created a magnificent garden at Blenheim Palace, only to tear it apart and build a greater one; Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, the savior of Chatsworth's 100-acre garden in the midst of its 35,000 acres; and the gardens of lesser mortals, among them Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West, both notable garden designers and writers.

We see the designers of royal estates--among them, Henry Wise, William Kent, Humphrey Repton, and the greatest of all English gardeners, Capability Brown, who created the 150-acre lake of Blenheim Palace, earned millions annually, and designed more than 170 parks, many still in existence today. We learn how gardening became a major catalyst for innovation (central heating came from experiments to heat greenhouses with hot-water pipes); how the new iron industry of industrializing Britain supplied a myriad of tools (mowers, pumps, and the boilers that heated the greenhouses); and, finally, Floud explores how gardening became an enormous industry as well as an art form in Britain, and by the nineteenth century was unrivaled anywhere in the world.

The history of Hampshire's renowned Exbury Gardens and the extraordinary achievement of Lionel de Rothschild in creating them.

This book celebrates Lionel de Rothschild (1882-1942) and his vision in creating Exbury Gardens, a two-hundred-acre woodland garden in Hampshire, and all those who have worked to realize its beauty. Ten chapters tell the story of the prominent Rothschild family and their horticulture project at Exbury, detailing Lionel's life, the intrepid plant hunters he sponsored, and the influence the plants had on gardens in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Richly illustrated with more than two hundred images, many published for the first time, The Eighth Wonder of the World chronicles the life of Exbury itself from before the arrival of the Rothschilds, into the war years, and beyond. The book places Exbury at the center of the development of private and public gardens--above all for rhododendrons--in the British Isles during the interwar years. In a stunning exploration of the woodland gardens, the book showcases the fascinating collections of rare plants, shrubs, and trees that remain on show today, as well as the famed rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias, and camellias.

A comprehensive pictorial library of non-native ornamental tree, shrub and vine species and hybrids, outlining identification features, cultural information, impactful native and invasive pests, height, form, timing of flower, fruit and fall colour. The library will also outline common methods of propagation, invasive plant potential in P.E.I.'s climatic and environmental conditions, and trial information related to newly introduced plant species and hybrids.

The classic guide to growing woody plants in a northern climate, in a new easy-to-use edition.

Leon Snyder's Trees and Shrubs for Northern Gardens was originally published in 1980 and quickly became the standard reference to trees, shrubs, and woody vines that thrive in northern climates. Weekend gardeners and professional horticulturalists have used Snyder's work to design gardens and landscapes in many areas of North America, including the Upper Midwest, Northern New England, the Plains States, and most of Canada.

This long-awaited new edition combines the technical information that made the first so valuable to the career horticulturalist with a new, practical approach that makes it essential for the recreational northern gardener. Sections on how to plan a garden are followed by advice on how to best plant and maintain trees and shrubs. The largest section of this new edition is an easy-to-use guide to the many varieties of trees, shrubs, and vines that will grow in the north. Here gardeners will learn the origins of various plants, how they can best be maintained, where and how they will grow, whether they will produce fruit or flowers, and how they will respond to changes in weather.

Trees and Shrubs for Northern Gardens features many remarkable illustrations, including both contemporary and historical line drawings. In addition, one hundred stunning full-color photographs demonstrate the beauty of these plants in full bloom. Quotations from famous horticultural and natural history writers link today's gardeners with fellow gardening enthusiasts across the centuries. This indispensable new edition is certain to become the standard reference for gardeners of the north.

Distributed for the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

In this compact book, Robert Smith gives clear and detailed instructions for gardening organically in a semi-arid climate. Using New Mexico as an example, he gives full directors for raising everything from asparagus to zucchini; shows how depressed bed planting protects plants and conserves moisture; and includes instructions about a labor-saving method of soil cultivation. After receiving his master's degree in English from the University of California at Berkeley, the author taught in a small high school in Jackson, California, and then at Tampere University in Finland. He then moved with his wife and two sons to a ranch near the old village of San Geronimo in northern New Mexico. After building a house, he devoted himself for several years to growing vegetables and raising goats. He then became an instructor at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas. After retiring from teaching, Smith moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he now teaches computer skills to seniors, maintains a web page, and keeps a backyard vegetable patch.