Adult Recommendations

Go low-maintenance and no-mow while supporting nature and biodiversity by planting a mini wildflower meadow with guidance from Tiny & Wild.

*2024 American Horticultural Society Book Award Winner*

The word “meadow” might conjure an image of a broad, expansive prairie covering acres of land, but it doesn’t have to. Meadows don’t have to be big to make a difference in the health of the planet. If you choose the right plants, even a small corner of the yard will do. In Tiny & Wild, you’ll learn how to embrace your wild side and create a low-maintenance miniature wildflower meadow that’s teeming with life.

The perks of creating a wild planting, even on a small scale, are many. Tiny but mighty meadows help mitigate climate change, foster biodiversity, sequester carbon, and calm the senses. With as little as a few square feet of space, you can create a beautiful, naturalistic planting that supports a diversity of plants, pollinators, and a plethora of other living things, not to mention its visual appeal to human eyes. Author and landscape designer Graham Laird Gardner helps you find inspiration in natural spaces so you can successfully site, design, plant, and care for your own small-scale meadow.

Whether you live in the city or in suburbia, perfect places for a mini meadow are everywhere:
 

• A small corner of the yard
• The pocket-sized area between the house and driveway
• Along a property line
• Flanking the front walk
• Around your mailbox
• Tucked next to the front stoop
• At the center of the vegetable garden
• In a raised bed
• Containers, deck boxes, and patio pots
• In the sliver of land between the sidewalk and the street

The plant lists and charts in Tiny & Wild share the best plants to include in your micro prairie, and Graham offers plenty of practical advice on planting your meadow from seed, transplants, or mature plants, depending on your budget, the site, and your timeline. Plus, learn how to care for your wildflower planting, including tips for watering, plant care, and weed management.

Discover how small spaces can make a big difference in Tiny & Wild.

As featured in The New York Times, a valuable and artfully crafted guide to tending a naturalistic garden. 

From plantsman Kelly Norris, author of New Naturalism, comes a much-needed handbook to maintaining today’s natural gardens. Naturalistic plantings, overflowing with biodiverse communities of plants, are filling front and backyards around the globe with colorful blooms, easy-care plants, and wildlife habitat. But caring for a naturalistic garden is vastly different than caring for a traditional home landscape of carefully manicured plants separated by mulch and regularly primped and pruned. In Your Natural Garden, tending your garden properly means understanding its connection to the greater natural world and using garden care methods that mimic nature instead of controlling it.

Page by page, you’re guided through all the seasons of a naturalistic garden’s life and the tasks and to-dos that come with each of them. Including how to:

 

• Encourage and establish complexity in a new garden
• Promote growth and variation by letting your plants self propagate
• Determine when and what to edit, and when it’s best to let chaos rein
• Decide if and when weeding is necessary
• Foster the insects and other animals that rely on your plants
• Understand succession in the naturalistic garden and why it’s important
• Know when it’s time to cut back your garden and how to do it right

Verdant photographs accompany the text throughout, offering examples of well-tended naturalistic plantings and the tasks that are needed to properly care for them.

Make your garden a haven for wildlife and a joy for you and your family

Whether you just want to make an existing family space more wildlife friendly or go the whole hedgehog and turn your back garden into a mini nature reserve, The Wildlife Garden will show you how to do it. You will discover:
- What plants are best for wildlife
- How to make refuges for insects and homes for bats
- How to create a pool for frogs

The Wildlife Garden is the essential guide to attracting birds to your bushes, butterflies to your buddleia and a whole array of other creatures into your garden - even if you only have a window box - all whilst adding scent and colour to your surroundings.

"The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden helps you become more intentional about attracting birds, bees, and more to the garden...you can build a beautiful garden for all seasons while simultaneously striving to support wildlife."―Horticulture



The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden is a beginner-friendly handbook that helps homeowners create a beautiful garden that attracts birds, bees, butterflies, and more. Everyone wants a garden buzzing with life, and Stacy Tornio makes it easy by sharing details about which plants attract specific creatures.



Stacy Tornio makes it easy to attract birds, bees, and butterflies to your home garden by sharing details about which plants attract specific creatures. The simple organization makes it easy to find exactly what you want, with chapters on attracting birds, bringing in bees butterflies, and welcoming wildlife. If you are looking to build a garden from scratch, there are ten plans with specific plant choices. The plans include a hummingbird garden, a birdseed garden, and options that are low-maintenance and drought-resistant. You'll also find expert advice on finding the right feeder, avoiding pesticides, and choosing native plants. The Ultimate Wildlife Habitat Garden is a beautiful, photo-filled guide that will help you grow the earth-friendly garden of your dreams.



 

Connecting to nature with native plants

Landscaping with native plants has encouraged gardeners from the Midwest and beyond to embark on a profound scientific, ecological, and emotional partnership with nature. Benjamin Vogt shares his expertise with prairie plants in a richly photographed guide aimed at gardeners and homeowners, making big ideas about design approachable and actionable. Step-by-step blueprints point readers to plant communities that not only support wildlife and please the eye but that rethink traditional planting and maintenance. Additionally, Vogt provides insider information on plant sourcing, garden tools, and working with city ordinances. This book will be an invaluable reference in sustainable garden design for those wanting both beautiful and functional landscapes.

Easy to use and illustrated with over 150 color photos, Prairie Up is a practical guide to artfully reviving diversity and wildness in our communities.

Received Honorable Mention from the AHS Book Awards (American Horticultural Society)

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.

National Outdoor Book Award Winner



Delve into this fascinating appreciation of milkweed, an often-overlooked plant, and discover an amazing range of insects and organisms that depend on it as the seasons unfold, with this collaboration between a noted ecologist and an award-winning botanical illustrator.

Ecologist Eric Lee-Mäder and noted botanical artist Beverly Duncan have teamed up to create this unique exploration of the complex ecosystem that is supported by the remarkable milkweed plant, often over-looked or dismissed as a roadside weed. With stunning, up-close illustrations and engaging text, they trace every stage of the plant's changes and evolutions throughout the seasons, including germination, growth, flowering, and seed development. Simultaneously, they chronicle the lives of the many creatures whose lives are intertwined with the milkweed: monarch butterflies; soldier and queen butterflies; milkweed tussock moths; large and small milkweed bugs; milkweed weevils; bumble bees; goldfinches; and more. The delightful illustrations and illuminating text give the reader the feeling of browsing an avid naturalist's sketchbook, while also learning about different milkweed species, how to propagate milkweed in the garden, the industrial uses of milkweed, interesting milkweed relatives, and more.





 

Bring your garden to life—and life to your garden!

Do you want a garden that makes a real difference? Choose plants native to our Midwest region. The rewards will benefit you, your yard, and the environment—from reducing maintenance tasks to attracting earth-friendly pollinators such as native birds, butterflies, and bees. Native plant expert Alan Branhagen makes adding these superstar plants easier than ever before, with proven advice that every home gardener can follow. This incomparable sourcebook includes 225 recommended native ferns, grasses, wildflowers, perennials, vines, shrubs, and trees. It’s everything you need to know to create a beautiful and beneficial garden.

This must-have handbook is for gardeners in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

A philosophical and practical guide for the gardener who hopes to wants to create a backyard garden in harmony with nature.

Why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. An eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson uses engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the United States, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists to demonstrate how we can apply the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces.

A book for gardens of all shapes, sizes, and budgets. Includes detailed chapters that address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. 

Includes a Getting Started section complete with general information, suggested further reading for specific regions, native plant information and regional databases, and native plant retail sources and suppliers.

Who is the humane gardener? The humane gardener practices compassionate landscaping. They attract wildlife and peacefully resolve conflicts with all the creatures that may inhabit their garden. They see the garden as a meeting place for all creatures, not a territory to be defended.

This inspiring and accessible hands-on book shows how simple gardening techniques can provide a dazzling plant display while helping the native wildlife. This new updated edition of the award-winning book (Garden Media Guild Practical Book of the Year) gives easy-to-follow instructions backed up with advice on planning and design, showing how we can share our outdoor space with nature. The authors show how to encourage beneficial garden species and discourage the more problematic ones. With its wealth of practical advice and detailed photography, this is the ideal sourcebook for gardeners and wildlife enthusiasts.

In How Can I Help, Doug Tallamy-a New York Times bestselling author and the cofounder of the nonprofit Homegrown National Park-gives his expert answers to questions commonly asked over the course of his career as an environmental advocate. This must-read book provides readers with the next step in their ecological journey.

With the publication of Bringing Nature Home, Douglas Tallamy revealed the critical role native plants play in attracting beneficial insects-and ushered in what is widely considered one of the most consequential movements in gardening. With Nature's Best Hope, Tallamy expanded his audience from gardeners to homeowners with a passionate advocacy that detailed how everyone with a yard can make a positive environmental impact.

In How Can I Help, Tallamy tackles the questions commonly asked at his popular lectures and shares compelling and actionable answers that will help gardeners and homeowners take the next step in their ecological journey. Topics range from ecology, evolution, biodiversity and conservation to restoration, native plants, invasive species, pest control, and supporting wildlife at home. Tallamy keenly understands that most people want to take part in conservation efforts but often feel powerless to do so as individuals. But one person can make a difference and How Can I Help details exactly how. Whether by reducing your lawn, planting a handful of native species, or allowing leaves to sit untouched, you will be inspired and empowered to join millions of other like-minded people to become the future of backyard conservation.

Tired of spending your weekends mowing, trimming, and edging? Then it’s time to say goodbye to your standard grass lawn and join the Groundcover Revolution! 

Turns out you’re not alone in your desire to ditch the lawn and replace it with something prettier, more diverse, lower maintenance, welcoming to pollinators, and good for Earth’s climate health. Reducing the lawn is among the biggest trends in homeownership, with an endless stream of homeowners looking for an eco-friendly alternative to a traditional turfgrass lawn. In the last few years alone, over 23 million American adults converted part of their lawn to a natural landscape, and now they’re looking to do even more.

The biggest challenge to adopting this new ideal of the perfect lawn? Knowing how and when to replace your turf, and which plants are the best ones for the job. Groundcover Revolution is here with all the answers you need (and some you didn’t even know you needed!).

Those answers include:

 

• How replacing a lawn with groundcovers reduces resource consumption on a significant level
• Why groundcovers require far less long-term maintenance than turf after establishment
• The many additional benefits of groundcovers, including erosion control, a reduction in chemical usage, a boost in biodiversity, and mitigation of climate change as a carbon sink
• The ways groundcovers overcome challenges such as tree roots, compacted soils, poor drainage, and dense shade
• The step-by-step mechanics of how to get rid of your lawn, how to place and plant groundcovers from seeds, plugs, or transplants, and how to care for your new “quilted lawn” once it’s in place 

Also included are 40 in-depth profiles of plants that are perfect choices for replacing a grass lawn. There are options for sun, for shade, for dry and wet sites, and for various climates around the globe. There are choices that bloom, options that are evergreen, and selections that are deer resistant. Author Kathy Jentz has also included an incredibly useful chart that gives you all the specifics on each of the 40 choices for quick reference and to make your groundcover selection process even easier.

Don’t let a lack of information stop you from creating the no-mow groundcover lawn of your dreams. Join the revolution and say goodbye to the burden of lawn care and hello to summer weekends relaxing by the pool or camping with family and friends. Whether you want to replace the entire lawn or just reduce the amount of land dedicated to turf, it’s time to usher in a new and improved idea of what a beautiful lawn should be.

What makes a garden good? For Chris McLaughlin, it’s about growing the healthiest, most scrumptious fruits and veggies possible, but it’s also about giving back. How can your little patch of Earth become a sanctuary for threatened wildlife, sequester carbon, and nurture native plants?

McLaughlin gives you all the tricks and tips you need to grow the sustainable garden of your dreams. Drawing from established traditions, such as permaculture and French intensive gardening, and McLaughlin’s hard-earned experience, The Good Garden is a joyful guide for newbies and experienced gardeners alike. It will teach you the fundamentals, including how to choose the right plant varieties for your microclimate, and proven methods to fight pests without chemicals. You will also discover the nuances of developing a green thumb, from picking species to attract specific types of pollinators to composting techniques based on time available. Lovely four-color photography will show you good gardening in action.

Most importantly, The Good Garden will help you foster a sense of meaning in your garden. Maybe the goal is to reduce food miles and plastic waste by growing delicious berries. Maybe it’s to meet neighbors who also care about the planet through a seed-swap. Maybe it’s a quiet moment patting the bunny whose manure will replace toxic fertilizers in the soil. A good garden offers endless possibilities and The Good Garden offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.
 

Essays and stories to inspire us to nurture diverse, meaningful relationships with gardens and landscapes.



"A garden, as Félix de Rosen suggests in this book, is not a place separate to the world but a tether to it. At a time of increasing ecological and cultural fragmentation and loss, de Rosen reminds us of the importance of the garden as a place of gentle activism and abundance, and gardening as a framework for being with the more-than-human world--engaging with care, reciprocity, and creativity. A Garden's Purpose is an important, timely book." -- Georgina Reid, editor of Wonderground Journal and author of The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants



The garden provides a powerful, generous way of looking at the world. Through stories and essays, this gracious volume, written in a highly accessible tone, invites readers on a journey to understand gardens as places where we build mutually beneficial relationships with the living world around us.



As beautiful spaces, gardens fill us with hope and wonder. As gathering places, they nurture friendships and communities. Thoughtfully crafted, they make us pause and appreciate our surroundings. Full of edible plants, they nourish us. Full of diversity--human and non-human--they connect us with the polychromatic world in which we live. They make us feel at home in our own bodies, in our cities, and on our planet.



Each chapter in this book is dedicated to a specific idea or element of the garden, from places where gardens grow (i.e., a driveway in San Francisco, a bathtub as a planter) to garden management (why some lawns need watering every few days, and some gardens can go almost a full year without irrigation) to color and texture (i.e., how fine-textured plants like grasses can be used to unify a space), and everything in between. Hundreds of gardens from all corners of the globe are included, photographed in glorious full color.



Perfect for home gardeners, landscape designers, or as a gift for the gardener in your life, this is an ode to the wonder, design, and habitat of gardens, and an inspiration to nurture meaningful relationships with the natural world around us.

"Explains how your garden can be a thriving, balanced community that gives more to your landscape than it takes." —Douglas W. Tallamy, author of The Nature of Oaks and Nature’s Best Hope

The birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects that inhabit our yards and gardens are overwhelmingly on our side—they are not our enemies, but instead our allies. They pollinate our flowers and vegetable crops, and they keep pests in check. In Garden Allies, Frédérique Lavoipierre shares fascinating portraits of these creatures, describing their life cycles and showing how they keep the garden’s ecology in balance. Also included is helpful information on how to nurture and welcome these valuable creatures into your garden. With beautiful pen-and-ink drawings by Craig Latker, Garden Allies invites you to make friends with the creatures that fill your garden—the reward is a renewed sense of nature’s beauty and a garden humming with life.

Even great gardeners like Monty Don are always learning and always experimenting.

This extensively revised new edition of his Complete Gardener, first published in 2003, brings you right up-to-date on how Monty gardens today - and his recommendations for you. 

The most comprehensive, practical, and highly illustrated book Monty has ever written, it covers what he believes are the most important aspects of gardening. Organic techniques have always been at the core of his practice, but this new edition picks up on another key principle: the need to provide habitats in your garden for local wildlife.

Over half of the photographs in this new edition will be new, taken over a year in his Long Meadow garden, and he is going through the text with a fine-tooth comb to ensure everything he says reflects his latest approach.

Gardeners are generally always looking for inspiration. In the forward of Planning & Designing Your First Garden: 50 Ways to Add Style for Personal Creativity, P. Allen Smith states, "Helen has outlined 50 ways to add style to express one's personal creativity in the garden--when in fact her 50 will inspire at least 50 more ideas." Rather than force her own creative ideas on you, author, gardener, and horticulturalist, Helen Yoest teaches you to recognize and act on your own creativity. Easy to follow sections are divided into four basic priorities when thinking about your garden: Garden Basics, Garden Styles, Garden Elements and Your Garden Environment. Chapters include how to create rhythm, scale, and balance along with curb appeal to shape your owns ideas as well as a chapter on creating a sustainable garden environment where plants and animals can live together. Also learn about the importance of selecting the perfect space and sketching out your plan first, how to use containers effectively, as well as how to incorporate other features including water, walkways and walls. Let your imagination go wild and create an amazing space that will give back season after season!

For every gardener who cares about the planet, this guide to designing a bee garden helps you create a stunningly colorful, vibrant, healthy habitat that attracts both honeybees and native bees.

In The Bee-Friendly Garden, award-winning garden designer Kate Frey and bee expert Gretchen LeBuhn provide everything you need to know to create a dazzling garden that helps both the threatened honeybee and our own native bees. No matter how small or large your space, and regardless of whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, just a few simple changes to your garden can fight the effects of colony collapse disorder and the worldwide decline in bee population that threatens our global food chain. There are many personal benefits of having a bee garden as well! Bee gardens:

· contain a gorgeous variety of flowers
· bloom continuously throughout the seasons
· are organic, pesticide-free, and ecologically sustainable
· develop healthy and fertile soil
· attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects
· increase the quantity of your fruit and vegetable harvest
· improve the quality, flavor, and size of your produce

Illustrated with spectacular full-color photos, The Bee-Friendly Garden debunks myths about bees, explains seasonal flower progression, and provides detailed instructions for nest boxes and water features. From “super blooming” flowers to regional plant lists and plants to avoid, The Bee-Friendly Garden is an essential tool for every gardener who cares about the planet and wants to make their yard a welcoming habitat for nature’s most productive pollinator.