Customer Reviews

Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens

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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.

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.

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.

This book is a must have for the California native gardener. I'd say the book's biggest strength is in its' inspiration- contains nice photographs of natural landscapes and gardens modeled after them. It groups plants by communities which is nice, though maybe hard to do. I know I live in an area which doesn't fit exactly into of any of the communities they list, but I can still get the idea they are trying to convey, and look around at what is in my community. California is so diverse you almost want a bunch of more specific and in-depth books for different areas inside California, but I guess maybe those areas of interest are too small to sell enough books to make it worth the while.

It does a good job listing different kinds of plants, my only complaint with this book is that I would have liked more pictures accompanying each plant for which information is given- because you really can't tell from the brief physical description what the plant looks like. As someone else has mentioned, this book is best paired with California Native Plants For The Garden. However, this complaint should be taken with a grain of salt, for designing a California native garden I think this book is the best on the market. Together, these two books provide the backbone to build your California native plant book collection around.

This is a good book to add to your native plant library, especially since it's grouped by plant community (woodland, chaparral, etc.). As the name implies, this book is focused more on designing landscapes with native plants, but doesn't contain the level of detail about each plant species that you'd find in other native plant books. Well worth adding to your library though. Makes a nice supplement to a good (or several good) reference books. I also like that it provides suggestions on places to visit to get a better feel for each plant community.

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.

This is a great book for teaching you about the suitable plants for different gardening conditions in California. Many of the ideas, however, are obtained from replicating pieces of natural habitat from State Parks etc. If you visit the countryside's wild places much you will be very familiar with all this so you could work out your own native gardening plan just by observing and noting these conditions and comparing them with your locations. The book however, is an excellent reminder of all this and makes it easy. It is attractively laid out with good, clear photographs and drawings of suggested layouts for your plants. I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to transform their garden into a water-wise, natural looking oasis. [ASIN:0520251105 Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens]

-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.

Yet another California native plant gardening book. Who would have thought you would be able to make that statement just a few years ago? If you've read any of Judith Larner's books or the Bornstein, Fross, O'Brien book, this books is questionably worth the money. The book provides several native plant garden templates based on plant communities and has a lot of plant profiles you'll find in other similar books.

While many books about natives are like a plant encyclopedia, Designing California Native Gardens is more about the concepts involved in designing to the different styles, climates, and plant communities in California's varied regions.

This is a book I take into the bathtub or lounge in the sunshine with. It's beautifully illustrated and photographed, and the point of it is to give you that broader understanding of the types of plants that thrive in the region you call home. This is important for two reasons. One, California's a big place, and the plants that thrive in my redwood forest region do NOT like the desert, and vice versa.

But an even bigger reason why understanding plant communities is important is that you want your garden to reflect your region's beauty, and be helpful to the bugs and animals that actually live in your area. For me, planting a cactus next to my redwoods and hoping an owl will know to nest there would be silly. But if I plant the trees and shrubs that my local birds are familiar with, THEN I'll see some wildlife.

If you've learned some things about native plants, but are struggling to put all the pieces together, this book is the next step for creating a California garden that has regional flair and supports your local wildlife. It's not the only book you'll need, but it fills a valuable niche in books about natives for the insights it provides.