Like Phillips's previous book, Tracking the Vanishing Frogs, this series of essays on the moral issues relating to garden design explores the effects human interest has on the objects of its attention. Wild or native plant gardening is an increasingly popular trend, but its ramifications are not always the kind that logic might suggest. In using native plants, we hope to create ecologically sensible and appropriate gardens that are easy to care for. When the nursery industry responds with a furious backlash of recrimination, why are we surprised? Advocates for using as many regional natives as possible in public landscapes are accused of being plant nazis--and as it turns out, that appellation is occasionally correct. Nobody intended the native plant movement to trigger wholesale destruction of habitat in order to provide gardens with eco-cool plants, yet how many gardeners insist upon learning where their native plants really come from? Phillips's touch is light yet deft, and her reach is broad without losing focus. There is no strident anger here, but her interviews with botanists, horticulturists, designers, and gardeners address dozens of intriguing and complex issues. Few books this provocative are this fun to read. --Ann Lovejoy
From Library Journal
Phillips (Tracking the Vanishing Frogs, St. Martins, 1994) profiles approximately two years in the career of a young California landscape architect, Joni Janecki, following the ups and downs of her work on a residential landscape, a new-fangled corporate landscape for Hewlett-Packard, and a small community park. The common theme linking these projects is Janecki's commitment to using native American plants in her designs, which echo habitats naturally found in California. Rather than presenting glossy photos of the finished products, Phillips concentrates on the deliberations and negotiations that go into producing a landscape plan, not the least of which is money, as both private and corporate clients reel from sticker shock. There's also some interesting material here about how plants are introduced to the nursery trade, how to regenerate a wild area, and what happens in a landfill for old concrete and asphalt. Patrons interested in landscape design as a career will enjoy the details of a landscape architect's daily routine. Recommended most highly for gardening collections in California and more comprehensive collections elsewhere.?Beth Clewis Crim, Prince William P.L., Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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