Gardening with Native Wild Flowers

by Leonard E. Foote and Samuel B. Jones Jr.

Book Overview

This classic on native plants encourages the garden use of wild flowers, grasses, ground covers, and hardy ferns native to the eastern and midwestern U.S., suggesting suitable plants for woodland, meadow, and wetland features in the garden.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0881921750
• ISBN13: 9780881921755
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Timber Press (OR)
• Length: 195 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Dated

Interesting book. Unfortunately this book at least in my opinion is dated and the ideas about native gardening have come a long way in the past 30 years. I found some major errors in the book: for example in Chapter 5, the first plant listed for shade is not a shade plant, it is a sun loving prairie plant. The layout of plants also doesn't have a logical flow. Wanted so much to love the book, but was turned off by it.

wonderfully organized!

This book is not meant to be an encyclopedia but a guide to gardening in the midwestern and eastern US. After the opening discussion of general issues (planning, management, soil, light, nutrients, pH, etc.) come several sections, each of which provides gardening information and detailed lists of native plants according to several possible sites -- sun, shade, meadow, bog -- plus separate sections for ferns, for grasses, sedges, and rushes, and for native ground covers. This is exactly what I've been looking for! A note to the reviewer who complained of the book's including the invasive Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife). Had you looked on p. 165 where it is cited in the Index, you would have seen this warning: "This introduced species with tall, magenta-colored spikes has become a noxious weed along stream banks and around ponds in the North, choking out many interesting native species. Purple Loosestrife is so aggressive that it should never be planted."

The bible of native flowers!

I never thought I would take a gardening book to bed with me. This one is a pleasure to read and taught me a lot about identification and gardening uses of native wildflowers of the southeast and northeast. It's the first book I grab to look up a species. Lots of full color photographs have made it much easier for me to identify the plants I want at the nursery. The two authors are coming from different perspectives - one has a natural meadow/woodlands landscape and the other uses native plants in a more controlled garden setting along with exotics. Between the two of them, the reader gets a balanced idea of the possibilities of introducing native flowers to their own yards. I only wish the index combined scientific names with common names, rather than having two separate indexes. It would also be convenient if the plant photos were on the same pages as the descriptions. But those are minor criticisms of an overall superb book.

good for everybody

This book is helpful for anyone interested in gardening. The scientific names are beneficial and the color photos are exquisite and provide assistance in identifying plants. An excellent book for the novice or the amatuer.