How to Create a Wildlife Garden: Encouraging Birds, Bees, Butterflies and Bugs into Your Outside Space

The Lavelles (The Organic Garden), British horticultural lecturers, instruct on “how gardeners and wildlife can share the same space without conflict” in this thorough and practical guide. Gardeners, they write, play a crucial role in the well-being of wildlife in helping creatures flourish, as nature has come under the threats of pesticides, urbanization, and industrial agriculture. Living in harmony with nature, the authors suggest, requires “applying the model of nature—a dynamic, self-balancing and regulating system” that involves creating a food chain, supporting endangered populations, and fostering biogeochemical, water, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen cycles. To support such a model, the authors provide garden design ideas ranging from those fit for country spaces to those that can flourish in an urban setting, and show how to make bee, butterfly, and bird-friendly borders. In addition to their garden plans, they profile a slew of flora and fauna: the authors cover common species of insect-eating birds (such as barn swallows), herbivores (such as deer), and plants (including annuals, bulbs—“double-flowering varieties... have no wildlife value”—perennials, herbs, and shrubs). Gardeners of all stripes will appreciate the encouraging advice on how to foster a deep and mutually beneficial relationship with the natural world. (Aug.)