Customer Reviews

Gardening with a Wild Heart: Restoring California's Native Landscapes at Home

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

I found this book very lyrical and inspiring, but it falls short of helping the beginning native plant gardener learn how to become a "backyard restorationist". The book is focused more on the author's personal gardening journey, which is lovely if you are looking for a travel-writing type of format, but I personally would have preferred more details and pictures about how an individual can recognize the native plants to her area, how to collect seeds (where legal), what plants naturally occur together (can we plant wildflowers at the feet of coyote bush and expect them to survive?) and plant lists.

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.

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.

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.

I couldn't put this poetic, informative book down; I read it all in one day. It's powerful and articulate, a closely reasoned case for gardening with local native plants that uses California examples but is relevant for gardens all over the country. It's as much nature writing as a gardening book.

This elegantly written and thoughtful book was a joy to read. Ms. Lowry has clearly had years of experience and expresses herself with an educated, light touch. Her wildflower chapter alone is worth the price. I found myself inspired to look in my own backyard to discover more about the plant communities. A delightful and immensely thought provoking book. Hope she is working on a new one!

"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.

I was hoping for in-depth strategies and practical guidelines, plotting, soil needs, and so on. Perhaps that's in here, somewhere, but reading this book is an exercise in teeth-gritting irritation. The word "lyrical" gets thrown around on the promotional testimonials, so perhaps I should have known better. Lowry can't deliver three sentences without inserting some quasi-spiritual eco-blather. She's on a quest to redeem and restore whatever wildlands she can, and that's fine, but I wasn't looking for discussions with small children, worried about humanity's rightful place on this precious orb we call Earth. I could not care less about her sculptor friends, her obviously very well-off clientele, or any other wistful asides that serve no purpose. It's just tiring, trying to find real instruction amidst all the ideology and humorless self-righteousness. I'm not a rightwing nutjob, I'm concerned with global warming, etc. etc., but this book would have about a third of the page count if you took the "lyrical" magic out of it. I'll stick with books by regular, perhaps non-enlightened human beings who offer regular, hands-on experience, minus the spiritual BS.

I read this book about 5 years ago and have since given it to friends as a gift. I strongly encourage anyone interested in gardening, or in the natural world, to read her book!! Lowry has a real gift for nature writing, and for conveying her passion for restoration gardening. What is restoration gardening? We know what harm human development is doing to the natural world, but imagine if all the suburban homeowners, and corporations with campuses, were to garden with plants typical of their regions. That is Lowry's dream, poetically conveyed to us in this wonderful book. All the little yards with their little bits of natural environment would create a patchwork of native habitat and food for birds and other wild creatures, and if the patchwork got more and more connected as more people began gardening with regional plants, we would all be helping to restore at least a little bit of the natural world that we took away. Her book inspired me to re-landscape our yard in Southern California with all native California plants, and we've gone from having 1 or 2 species of birds to having more than 22 different species. And there are all kinds of little butterflies and other winged pollinators that I never saw before, and lizards galore. I noticed her book at just the right time -- when I was feeling like I was buried in the heart of sterile suburbs -- and it brought me joy to read, and continuing joy as I followed her example and now have a garden that feels right for California. Thank you, Judith Lowry!