Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Douglas W. Tallamy, Timber Press; Expanded Edition edition, 2009
Book Description
April 1, 2009
With the accelerating pace of development and subsequent habitat destruction, the pressures on wildlife populations are greater than ever. But there is a surprisingly important and relatively simple step toward reversing this alarming trend: Everyone with access to a patch of earth can make a significant contribution to sustaining biodiversity.
There is an unbreakable link between native plant species and native wildlife. Most native insects cannot, or will not, eat alien plants. When native plant species disappear, the insects disappear, thus impoverishing the food source for birds and other animals. In many parts of the world, habitat destruction has been so extensive that local wildlife populations are in crisis and may be headed toward extinction. By planting natives, everyone can provide a welcoming environment for wildlife. This doesn't need to entail a drastic overhaul of your yard or garden. The process can be gradual and can reflect both personal preferences and local sensitivities.
Bringing Nature Home has sparked a national conversation about the link between healthy local ecosystems and human well-being, and the new paperback edition -- with an expanded resource section and updated photos -- will help broaden the movement. By acting on Douglas Tallamy’s practical recommendations, everyone can make a difference.
There is an unbreakable link between native plant species and native wildlife. Most native insects cannot, or will not, eat alien plants. When native plant species disappear, the insects disappear, thus impoverishing the food source for birds and other animals. In many parts of the world, habitat destruction has been so extensive that local wildlife populations are in crisis and may be headed toward extinction. By planting natives, everyone can provide a welcoming environment for wildlife. This doesn't need to entail a drastic overhaul of your yard or garden. The process can be gradual and can reflect both personal preferences and local sensitivities.
Bringing Nature Home has sparked a national conversation about the link between healthy local ecosystems and human well-being, and the new paperback edition -- with an expanded resource section and updated photos -- will help broaden the movement. By acting on Douglas Tallamy’s practical recommendations, everyone can make a difference.
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Tallamy takes an obvious observation—wildlife is threatened when suburban development encroaches on once wild lands—and weds it to a novel one: that beneficial insects are being deprived of essential food resources when suburban gardeners exclusively utilize nonnative plant material. Such an imbalance, Tallamy declares, can lead to a weakened food chain that will no longer be able to support birds and other animal life. Once embraced only by members of the counterculture, the idea of gardening with native plants has been landscape design's poor stepchild, thought to involve weeds and other plants too unattractive for pristine suburban enclaves. Not so, says Tallamy, who presents compelling arguments for aesthetically pleasing, ecologically healthy gardening. With nothing less than the future of North American biodiversity at stake, Tallamy imparts an encouraging message: it's not too late to save the ecosystem-sustaining matrix of insects and animals, and the solution is as easy as replacing alien plants with natives. Haggas, Carol --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Bringing Nature Home opens our eyes to an environmental problem of staggering proportions. Fortunately, it also shows us how we can help.
(Judy Brinkerhoff Petaluma Argus-Courier )
You can look at this book as a manifesto explaining why we should favor native plants, but it’s much more than that. It’s a plan to sustain the endangered biodiversity and even more, it’s a plan to transform suburbia from an environmental liability to an environmental asset.
(Eco-Libris Blog )
This updated and expanded edition … is a delight to read and a most needed resource."
(Warwick Beacon )
"This book will not only foster a love of the outdoors in all who read it, but also create a deeper understanding and appreciation of the intricate web of wildlife outside your door." (Cabin Life )
"In an area that is as open and wooded as ours, we may not be aware that there is more to the need for natives than concern about invasive species that upset an ecosystem. According to Tallamy, a balanced ecosystem needs more insects. It is when the balance of the system is disrupted that problems arise." (The Recorder )
"Tallamy's book is a call to arms. There is not much ordinary citizens can do to create large new preserves. But we can make better use of the small green spaces we have around our houses. While the situation in theUnited States is quite serious, Tallamy offers options that anyone with a garden, even a postage-stamp-sized one like mine, can do to help." (St. Petersburg Times )
"Tallamy makes such a compelling case for the importance of insects to birds that I’ve completely changed the way I garden. From now on, insect attractors are my first choices." (Birding Business )
"Tallamy illustrates well how gardeners have contributed greatly to tipping the environment off balance and how they are equally able to turn the trend … Plants and insects are integrally intertwined. Understanding the beauty of these relationships deepens our appreciation of our gardens and the important role we play." (Winston-Salem Journal )
"[It] is the book that is going to change how gardening is conducted over the next century." (Ants, Bees, Birds, Butterflies, Nature Blog )
"Doug Tallamy's book is a gift. It's not the kind of gift wrapped with a pink ribbon and a tiny rose tucked into the bow. It's the kind of gift that shakes you to your core and sets you on the path of healing. Your garden. Your planet. One plant at a time. Open it." (Plant Whatever Brings You Joy Blog )
"Buy, borrow, or steal this book! It is essential reading with ideas that need to become part of our understanding of how life works on this planet.""This book will not only foster a love of the outdoors in all who read it, but also create a deeper understanding and appreciation of the intricate web of wildlife outside your door." (Cabin Life )
"In an area that is as open and wooded as ours, we may not be aware that there is more to the need for natives than concern about invasive species that upset an ecosystem. According to Tallamy, a balanced ecosystem needs more insects. It is when the balance of the system is disrupted that problems arise." (The Recorder )
"Tallamy's book is a call to arms. There is not much ordinary citizens can do to create large new preserves. But we can make better use of the small green spaces we have around our houses. While the situation in the
"Tallamy makes such a compelling case for the importance of insects to birds that I’ve completely changed the way I garden. From now on, insect attractors are my first choices." (Birding Business )
"Tallamy illustrates well how gardeners have contributed greatly to tipping the environment off balance and how they are equally able to turn the trend … Plants and insects are integrally intertwined. Understanding the beauty of these relationships deepens our appreciation of our gardens and the important role we play." (Winston-Salem Journal )
"[It] is the book that is going to change how gardening is conducted over the next century." (Ants, Bees, Birds, Butterflies, Nature Blog )
"Doug Tallamy's book is a gift. It's not the kind of gift wrapped with a pink ribbon and a tiny rose tucked into the bow. It's the kind of gift that shakes you to your core and sets you on the path of healing. Your garden. Your planet. One plant at a time. Open it." (Plant Whatever Brings You Joy Blog )
(Prairie Moon Nursery blog )
"This book is not a rant on nature gardening, nor is it a typical garden design book, or a stuffy academic textbook. The author might be a professor … but he has written a book which is readable, scientific, fascinating, and highly digestible." (Loving Nature's Garden Blog )
"This is the 'it' book in certain gardening circles. It's really struck a nerve.""This book is not a rant on nature gardening, nor is it a typical garden design book, or a stuffy academic textbook. The author might be a professor … but he has written a book which is readable, scientific, fascinating, and highly digestible." (Loving Nature's Garden Blog )
(Philadelphia
"My book of choice of the year."
(Sally Cunningham Buffalo
He combines the passion which many of us have, with the science, and that’s a winning combination. (Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp Indianapolis Star )
“Tallamy explains in beautiful prose the importance of native plants to our wildlife.” (Plain Dealer )
He combines the passion which many of us have, with the science, and that’s a winning combination. (Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp Indianapolis Star )
“Tallamy explains in beautiful prose the importance of native plants to our wildlife.” (Plain Dealer )
Book Description
75 good reasons to plant natives.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Douglas W. Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the
CUSTOMER REVIEW
This book makes me stop and think, December 9, 2007
By James Golden (Stockton , NJ United States
This review is from: Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens (Hardcover)
I heard Douglas Tallamy speak at the Native Plants in the Landscape Conference at Millersville University (PA) last June, and I've been waiting for his book to be published by Timber Press.
I'm a gardener, and I don't want to grow only native plants. But this book makes me stop and think. Douglas Tallamy makes the best case for use of native plants I've read. I recommend it without reservation.
Simply put, the book's message is this. All life on earth, except for some recently discovered, relatively rare forms that take energy from volcanic vents in the ocean floor, depend on energy from the sun that plants convert into food through photosynthesis. Most of that solar energy is made available to higher life forms through insects that eat plants. With the exception of a few direct herbivores such as cows, all other higher forms of life either eat insects (most birds) or eat other animals that eat insects (hawks eating sparrows), and so on up the food chain. The productivity of an environment, literally the weight of biomass produced in a given area, is directly related to the insect population, and the variety of wildlife - number of species of birds and so on - is also directly related to the numbers and varieties of insects living there.
Research now clearly shows that native insect populations cannot be sustained by most alien plants. Our insects have co-evolved with native plants over millions of years, and most have highly specific preferences for certain plants as food. As Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at theUniversity of Delaware
Without the literally innumerable varieties of insects that constitute the first step in transfer of solar energy into life, massive losses of species will occur in the not too distant future. Many such extinctions are actually under way.
Tallamy's statistics support his message. Native oaks, for example, support 517 lepidoptera species, willows, 456, birches, 413. In contrast, alien Clematis vitalba supports 40 species of herbivores in its homeland, but only 1 inNorth America . Another example, Phragmites australis supports 170 species in its homeland, but only 5 species on this continent. Unfortunately, insects can't evolve to adapt to alien species in time to save our threatened populations. Evolution takes place over millions of years. Although the Norway maple has been on the North American continent for going on 300 years, and has become the predominant shade tree here, it still has not become a productive part of our native ecosystem. Instead, it is rapidly displacing native species of maple.
Tallamy urges readers to do what they can to eliminate invasive alien species, to use native plants, to replace sterile lawns, which consist of two or three alien grass species that support little more than Japanese beetle grubs, with sustaining native plant refuges. He urges those who live in suburbia to plant native shade trees, possibly groves, to plant natives along lot lines to begin reestablishing productive areas where insects can successfully reproduce and live, and where their predators can find security and cover.
Tallamy writes with grace and humor. He makes it easy to follow his arguments, uses copious examples to relate his ideas to the natural world we all know, and uses down-to-earth anecdotes to illustrate his points clearly. The book, even with its many, for me, unpronounceable binomial Latin names for a multitude of insects, is an easy read. I finished it in two days, while busy with work and many other chores.
Like most people, I have an aversion to what I consider ugly, even frightening insects. I find it much easier to look at pictures of pretty butterflies than spiders and sawflies, but I learned a lot about the insect world while reading this book and looking at its pictures. And now I have enough knowledge to want to learn more, and to better understand how the natural world of my garden works.
I doubt I'll be able to eliminate plants of foreign origin from my garden, but I'll try to keep a much better balance of natives to aliens (mostly natives), and practice more sustainable gardening in the future. And I'll certainly work to try to convince others to reduce lawn size and incorporate native plants into their landscapes.
I'm a gardener, and I don't want to grow only native plants. But this book makes me stop and think. Douglas Tallamy makes the best case for use of native plants I've read. I recommend it without reservation.
Simply put, the book's message is this. All life on earth, except for some recently discovered, relatively rare forms that take energy from volcanic vents in the ocean floor, depend on energy from the sun that plants convert into food through photosynthesis. Most of that solar energy is made available to higher life forms through insects that eat plants. With the exception of a few direct herbivores such as cows, all other higher forms of life either eat insects (most birds) or eat other animals that eat insects (hawks eating sparrows), and so on up the food chain. The productivity of an environment, literally the weight of biomass produced in a given area, is directly related to the insect population, and the variety of wildlife - number of species of birds and so on - is also directly related to the numbers and varieties of insects living there.
Research now clearly shows that native insect populations cannot be sustained by most alien plants. Our insects have co-evolved with native plants over millions of years, and most have highly specific preferences for certain plants as food. As Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the
Without the literally innumerable varieties of insects that constitute the first step in transfer of solar energy into life, massive losses of species will occur in the not too distant future. Many such extinctions are actually under way.
Tallamy's statistics support his message. Native oaks, for example, support 517 lepidoptera species, willows, 456, birches, 413. In contrast, alien Clematis vitalba supports 40 species of herbivores in its homeland, but only 1 in
Tallamy urges readers to do what they can to eliminate invasive alien species, to use native plants, to replace sterile lawns, which consist of two or three alien grass species that support little more than Japanese beetle grubs, with sustaining native plant refuges. He urges those who live in suburbia to plant native shade trees, possibly groves, to plant natives along lot lines to begin reestablishing productive areas where insects can successfully reproduce and live, and where their predators can find security and cover.
Tallamy writes with grace and humor. He makes it easy to follow his arguments, uses copious examples to relate his ideas to the natural world we all know, and uses down-to-earth anecdotes to illustrate his points clearly. The book, even with its many, for me, unpronounceable binomial Latin names for a multitude of insects, is an easy read. I finished it in two days, while busy with work and many other chores.
Like most people, I have an aversion to what I consider ugly, even frightening insects. I find it much easier to look at pictures of pretty butterflies than spiders and sawflies, but I learned a lot about the insect world while reading this book and looking at its pictures. And now I have enough knowledge to want to learn more, and to better understand how the natural world of my garden works.
I doubt I'll be able to eliminate plants of foreign origin from my garden, but I'll try to keep a much better balance of natives to aliens (mostly natives), and practice more sustainable gardening in the future. And I'll certainly work to try to convince others to reduce lawn size and incorporate native plants into their landscapes.
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