Wildlife in Your Garden: Planting and Landscaping to Create a Backyard Sanctuary

by Karen Lanier (editor)

Imagine a thriving garden in your backyard, bursting with vibrantly colored blooms and lush green leaves, shaded by tall trees. Now imagine the same garden, alive with buzzing and flapping and chirping and croaking. Imagine the ecological impact of encouraging natural pollinators. Imagine the excitement of watching your garden become a hub of activity and learning about all of its different visitors. For those who relish observing nature in action, planning a garden to attract certain types of wildlife can bring daily enjoyment right into the backyard.

Inside Wildlife in Your

How to deal with and even appreciate the insects in your garden

Reptile and amphibian backyard visitors and how they can contribute to a healthy ecosystem

“Birdscaping”—planning and planting with birds in mind

A special section on hummingbirds that includes an illustrated guide to twelve common types

Using binoculars and field guides to identify birds by sight and by calls

Different types of pollination and the plants and food crops that depend on it

Butterfly metamorphosis and gardening for the different life stages

How bats and moths take over pollination duties at night

Learning to coexist with four-legged furry friends who like to dig and forage

Natural ways to protect your garden from pests and discourage harmful wildlife

317 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 26, 2016

Reviews

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful and text-heavy.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not a how-to guide to creating wildlife habitat in your garden/yard, as one would assume from the cover. It is more of a simplistic description of types of wildlife you may see in your backyard, with a few tips on ways to attract them.

It has many inaccuracies. To correct a few of the most blatant:
• Wasps are not in the order diptera.
• Hellbenders and mudpuppies are not sirens.
• Salamanders are not in the order anura.
• Efts are not larval salamanders. They are the terrestrial juvenile stage of newts.
• Anoles are not a type of chameleon.
• The gopher tortoise is not the only tortoise native to North America.
• A vole is not a type of mouse. They are in different families.
• Opossums are not immune to rabies. However, they do contract it only very rarely.

The good:
• This book discusses the importance of all members of an ecosystem, including those that are typically underappreciated (e.g. snakes, insects, spiders, predators).
• The information given in the section about birds is of much higher quality and birds are likely the taxa that people most want to attract to their backyards.
• This book uses the terms venomous and poisonous appropriately (venom is injected; poison is absorbed). This surprised me because much of the other basic wildlife information was riddled with inaccuracies and these terms are often misused, even by professionals.

[Helen Yoest · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book had no life to it. It was factual but dull. It read like a series of garden club newsletters, and the information very well may have been. Even though I'm thoroughly schooled in creating wildlife habitats, I like to see what other people are writing and if and how they inspire. There was very little to inspire in Wildlife in Your Garden

[Laura Gilfillan · Rating 3 out of 5]

To enjoy our natural world we need to tolerate that natural world--even in our garden. This book tries to present some tips on how to achieve a healthy balance so you can enjoy wildlife and have a garden. This included quite a bit of information about different creatures, and nearly half of the book transformed into a birding book rather than a gardening book.