Customer Reviews

Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest

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Link, Russell, Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1999, 320p.

Soft cover, perfect binding, acid free paper, 8.5 X 11.

The book is divided into 5 parts 1) Wildlife Habitat Design and Maintenance 2) Pacific Northwest Wildlife in the Landscape 3) Special Features for Wildlife Landscapes 4) Coexisting with Wildlife 5) Appendices

Volume has good index , bibliographic references and is clearly printed.

Over one third of the book is in the Appendices, they are excellent, perhaps its best `part'.

A) Pacific Northwest Habitats B) Wildlife Plants Lists, Tables, and Maps C) Landscape and Wildlife Information for Specific Plants D) Construction Plans for Nest Boxes and Bird Feeders E) Resources (in my opinion, very important)

Content:

Well written, educationally enhanced by wonderful illustrations, good examples and step-by-step procedures. Quality, abet small, section of color photos of wildlife identification and descriptions. Includes description of habitat construction from apartment balcony to acreage. Also discusses ponds, dust paths, nest boxes and nest structures, feeders with detailed tables, brush piles, snags, hedgerows, bird watching, problems with wildlife and responsible pet ownership.

Book can be read as text or used as a reference resource. The publication is a must for any land steward or wildlife enthusiast. An excellent purchase as a gift for yourself or fellow enthusiast. Available in bookstores or if you order from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife you receive a copy autographed by Russell.

We live in Southern California so I was a bit dubious how useful this book would be. Happily, it still has much to offer for anyone wishing to wildscape. There's plenty of general advice re. food/water/nesting sites etc. and good plans for bird houses and bat houses. There's a nice chapter on attracting hummingbirds and butterflies, and plenty about creating and maintaining water features (a huge attraction for wildlife in hot areas like ours).

You will need to cross reference the plant lists against what's native for your area, and find your own local native plant nurseries, but there's still lots of great advice here for wildlife gardeners that can be adapted to almost any region.

Trish

This is my 4th or 5th purchase of this wonderful book. I have given all my copies away and need another for myself. It has great resources on the plants birds, insects and animals use for food, cover, etc. We made our voilet green swallow nest boxes from the plans in the book. We've watched new swallows peek out and take their first flight every year since we put them up.

We live in the foothills of Mt. Hood and it took me a few months after moving here to realize I shouldn't bring the invasive plants I used in town to the mountains. And I realized I could have turned my city home into a wildlife haven. The book is a great resources for all city, suburb or rural locales in the PNW.

It's just a wonderful book!

This book is much, much more than I was expecting: it provides helpful and readable instructions on how to structure and manage your yard or acreage to attract a wide variety of wildlife. I especially appreciate the compendium of bird, bat, and bee box construction for various species. A chapter on designing hedgerows includes helpful tables of plants so the reader can select the desired characteristics (e.g., drought tolerant, native, forms a dense thicket, thornless) and easily determine the plants that fit the need. I rarely write book reviews, but this is exceptional.

One of the very few books that recognizes the fact that landscaping east of the Cascades is a completely different animal from landscaping in the wet zone west of the Cascades.

Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest

I have owned this book for several years now, and having applied the information Russell has provided here, I have found it truly helped us develop a wonderful little piece of habitat for our wild friends.
I highly recommend this book. Follow what works for your landscape situation, and as your gardens develop, so will the list of wildlife that make your property its permanent home