The biggest enemy of any garden is not a pest, disease, or poison—it’s any plant with tougher survival skills than the plants it competes with. The best way to weed out the invaders is with this fiendishly clever guide to native plants that can seek and destroy the top 100 most unwelcome perennials, grasses, vines, shrubs, and trees. While replacing the invaders, the beautiful, hardy native plants described here also attract native birds and butterflies, while turning away their own enemy invaders. Word-and-picture guides provide tips on care and maintenance, while helpful “at a glance” boxes depict shapes, sizes, best locations, and most attractive features of each native alternative.
I wear many hats, all of which revolve around plants and gardens. I am a certified chlorophyll addict, an avid and lifelong plantsman, gardener and naturalist. I work as a lecturer and garden designer, and am an award winning author and photographer. I lecture internationally on topics of design , plants and ecology, and have shared my love of plants and my abiding respect for regional landscapes with professional and amateur audiences for 35 years.
In addition to my books, I am a contributing editor for Horticulture, and write regularly for Landscape Architecture, American Gardener and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. My writing reflects a love of plants, and he champions their use in artistically designed, environmentally friendly gardens.
I worked as curator at the U.S. National Arboretum and the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, and have devoted a lifetime to studying native plants in the wild and in gardens which lead to undergraduate degrees in Botany and Horticulture. I earned my M.S. in Horticulture and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Minnesota. I am a lecturer in the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he teaches about plants and their ecological connections to natural systems and cultural landscapes.
After tending a city lot alive with birds and butterflies in Minneapolis, MN, I now garden on 10 wild acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Charlottesville, Virginia, where he grows natives and the best plants of the global garden. The garden at Bird Hill was featured in The New York Times and frequently appears in national and regional publications. The garden is a popular destination for national tours. Visitors discover a collector's paradise set among a pastiche of woodland, meadow, and gardens inspired by the beauty of the regional landscape.
