Wildlife-Friendly Plants: Make Your Garden a Haven for Beneficial Insects, Amphibians and Birds [Hardcover]

Rosemary Creeser (Author), Steve Wooser (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2004

A practical and inspiring guide.

Wildlife gardening books have traditionally focused on large gardens in rural areas where there is ample space to plant large trees and hedges. For many new gardeners or those living in urban areas, working with a small space presents a variety of challenges when trying to attract beneficial wildlife.

Wildlife-Friendly Plants is a practical guide specifically designed to help gardeners chose the best plants for encouraging and supporting wildlife. By attracting beneficial wildlife, gardeners can eliminate the use of a range of chemicals and create a healthier environment. This book is intended for any size garden from large to small in the city or country.

Wildlife-Friendly Plants includes:

• Beautifully photographed directory of wildlife friendly plants
• Helpful step-by-step projects for planting, pruning and dividing
• Extended backflap with a guide to the symbols used throughout the book.

Many of these plants are perfect for use in small spaces, such as a patio, terrace or window box. With the valuable suggestions for use, planting and maintenance, anyone can create a safe haven for beneficial insects, amphibians and birds.

Wildlife-Friendly Plants is the ideal book for gardening and wildlife enthusiasts everywhere.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Enthusiasm for attracting wildlife has influenced gardeners on both sides of the Atlantic with ecologically admirable results. Creeser, who lives in London and is active in organic efforts in Canada and the U.S., focuses on plants that attract helpful creatures in Britain and/or North America. Three succinct chapters give cursory but sound advice on "Creating a Haven for Wildlife," "How to Plant" and "Encouraging and Sustaining Wildlife." An alphabetical "Plant Directory" follows, listing desirable plants with general descriptions, recommended cultivars, preferred locations and suggestions for care. These are generally reliable, but there are problematic exceptions. The attractive color photographs, almost exclusively closeups of flowers in bloom, are seductive but uninformative. Readers learn what the flower looks like at its prime, but nothing of the habit of the plant. Cultural recommendations are inconsistent and often do not address local requirements. Esthetics are also at risk. Readers are exhorted to let spent flowers go to seed, leave the detritus from pruning on the ground for days and permit brush to pile up. This will encourage birds, amphibians and bugs, but probably won't make for an attractive landscape. For those who already embrace wildlife gardening, Creeser may have some useful tips. Newcomers, however, will find her guidance confusing at best. 180 color photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

No matter what size the garden or where it's located, attracting and supporting wildlife is one of the most beneficial of gardening activities. Although the common perception is that wildlife can only be found on large tracts of country land, Creeser demonstrates that, in nature, the "field of dreams" rule applies: if you build it, she says, they will come. By they, she means insects, birds, butterflies, and amphibians that can add life to the garden, and that need a garden habitat in order to survive. Knowing how to encourage wildlife is only part of a successful approach. The other is determining which plants are wildlife-friendly, and to that end, Creeser provides a comprehensive plant directory of perennials, trees, and shrubs. Complemented by breathtaking color photographs, each entry features informative symbols for at-a-glance reference. As beneficial wildlife populations diminish, it is more important than ever that gardeners plan and plant with these creatures in mind. Creeser's compact new guide makes that easy to do. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books (October 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552979547
• ISBN-13: 978-1552979549
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 7.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,684,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful pictures, lite prose, March 2, 2006

By 

Mark Mills (Glen Rose, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wildlife-Friendly Plants: Make Your Garden a Haven for Beneficial Insects, Amphibians and Birds (Hardcover)

For 12 pages, the book discusses the interaction of plants and wildlife. Another 12 pages offer basic tips on planting, plus a few projects. The remaining 115 pages offer 'plant directory'. Each plant gets 1-2 pages, including a wonderful color photos. The photos are magnificent, but the discussion relatively uninformative.

I found "Great Garden Companions : A Companion-Planting System for a Beautiful, Chemical-Free Vegetable Garden" by Sally Jean Cunningham far more helpful.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The joys of plants and animals, November 16, 2004

By 

Yvonne Rogers (Bloomington, Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wildlife-Friendly Plants: Make Your Garden a Haven for Beneficial Insects, Amphibians and Birds (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book that makes you think about which plants to select and grow in your garden, backyard, roof top or balcony with a view not just for the colors, fragances and beauty they bring to you as a human but also what kinds of wildlife they can attract to also enjoy the fragances, blooms, blossoms and nectars they provide.

The guidance on how to do this throughout the book is clear and beautifully illustrated, with enticing descriptions of nectar-rich plants for attracting different species, from bees to birds throughout the year. Suggestions like planting a creeping thyme that is nectar-rich in the small crevices between the stones on a gravel path to enable butterflies to bask in the early morning sunshine provides a quite different way of thinking about what to plant in a garden. Not just to enrichen your own experience but also provide a haven, a home and a food supply for insects.

The extensive plant directory also includes a wonderful set of home drawn (and easy to understand) set of symbols for both plant and wildlife attributes - my favorite being the kinky shaped caterpillar. Each plant is described in terms of the region it will grow in, where to plant it and how to care for it to attract a range of wildlife.

Living in the mid-west of the USA, I was intrigued to see what plant plus wildife combos I could experiment with. I am squarely in zone 5 and was pleased to see from the list of plants that most would attract a range of wildlife, although sadly Indiana is not suitable for growing the poached egg plant (limnanthes douglasii) which thrives further south.

This book will greatly appeal to those who are interested in encouraging (and discouraging) certain kinds of insects, amphibians and birds to their gardens. While the advice suggests postponing deadheading and trimming spent flowers till a little later in the season (to encourage the wildlife to drink the remaining nectar) the trade-off in doing so is to provide wildlife with both food and a place to hibernate over winter without disruption. What better form of altruism. This book provides a different way of thinking about flaura and fauna, especially if you are curious about attracting wildlife to your garden.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From soil preparation to choosing the right plants, February 10, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wildlife-Friendly Plants: Make Your Garden a Haven for Beneficial Insects, Amphibians and Birds (Hardcover)

Many home gardeners wish to create a natural habitat for wildlife but don't know how: Rosemary Creeser's bright Wildlife Friendly Plants: Make Your Garden A Haven For Beneficial Insects, Amphibians And Birds covers plants which invite not only birds, but beneficial insects and amphibians, expanding the number of creatures which fall under the 'beneficial' flag. Contrasting colors, scents, and shapes are the heart of creating such a sanctuary, and Creeser's practical advise covers everything from soil preparation to choosing the right plants that go together.