Garden Allies: The Insects, Birds, and Other Animals That Keep Your Garden Beautiful and Thriving

by Frederique Lavoipierre

Overview

"Explains how your garden can be a thriving, balanced community that gives more to your landscape than it takes." —Douglas W. Tallamy, author of The Nature of Oaks and Nature’s Best Hope

The birds, mammals, reptiles, and insects that inhabit our yards and gardens are overwhelmingly on our side—they are not our enemies, but instead our allies. They pollinate our flowers and vegetable crops, and they keep pests in check. In Garden Allies, Frédérique Lavoipierre shares fascinating portraits of these creatures, describing their life cycles and showing how they keep the garden’s ecology in balance. Also included is helpful information on how to nurture and welcome these valuable creatures into your garden. With beautiful pen-and-ink drawings by Craig Latker, Garden Allies invites you to make friends with the creatures that fill your garden—the reward is a renewed sense of nature’s beauty and a garden humming with life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643260082
Publisher:	Timber Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/28/2021
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	514,657
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Frédérique Lavoipierre is the former director of education at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and author of Garden Allies, a ten-year series of articles published in Pacific Horticulture Magazine. She currently works as a consultant and serves on the editorial advisory group for the American Public Gardens Association.

Table of Contents

Preface 6

Introduction 11

A Closer Look at "Bugs" 22

Chapter 1 Life Beneath Our Feet 29

Chapter 2 On the Wing: Bees, Butterflies & Other Flower Visitors 64

Chapter 3 Digging Deeper: Predators and Parasites 119

Chapter 4 Meet the Beetles 148

Chapter 5 The Garden Commons: True Bugs, Lacewings & Other Familiar Garden Insects 177

Chapter 6 The Ground Crew and Beyond: Centipedes, Spiders, Other Arthropods, Galls & Pathogens 224

Chapter 7 High and Low: Birds, Bats & Other Vertebrates 258

Epilogue: Gardening Matters 294

Metric Conversions 296

Glossary 299

Recommended Resources 303

Acknowledgments 306

Index 308

Editorial Reviews

04/19/2021

Lavoipierre, former director of education at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, focuses on “the pollinators, decomposers, and other organisms that are part of any thriving garden” in her impassioned and informative debut. Instead of viewing such creatures as enemies or pests, Lavoipierre encourages gardeners to accept them as part of the ecosystem and offers advice for creating an “ally-friendly” garden. She helps readers distinguish “good bugs” from “bad bugs” (“pests” are destructive, while pollinators are helpful) and offers information about earthworms, roly-polys, bees, and beetles. Fun facts abound: “over one-fifth of all living species on earth are beetles,” ambush bugs can capture prey over 10 times their size, and centipedes have odd-numbered feet and never 100 of them, despite their name. She also offers tips for plants that will help gardeners protect and care for butterflies, birds, and bats. Her accessible information comes with humor (Ichneumonid wasps are “not icky at all”), and her plea that gardeners appreciate the critters in their soil rings true: “it’s high time,” she writes, “to find new ways to garden and to contribute to the long-term sustainability of our human-managed landscapes.” Gardeners will walk away from this spirited advice finding creepy crawlers at least a bit more charming. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Frédérique Lavoipierre explains how your garden can be more than a collection of high-maintenance decorations; it can be a thriving, balanced community that gives more to your landscape than it takes." —Douglas W. Tallamy, author of The Nature of Oaks, Nature’s Best Hope, and Bringing Nature Home

“Garden Allies introduces and engages readers about the many phenomenal organisms—from soil-dwelling microorganisms to beetles, bees, bacteria, and bats—who are our natural allies in the garden. In demystifying these fabulous creatures, Lavoipierre inspires us as gardeners to stop, look, listen, learn, and put away the toxic chemicals.” —Jennifer Jewell, creator and host of Cultivating Place, author of The Earth in Her Hands

“An excellent resource for any gardener willing to press pause before turning to the pesticide.”—Booklist

"A useful and interesting read for rookie, armchair, and experienced gardeners. Easy to read front to back or section by section, and information can be applied to any region of the United States." —Kirkus 

“A useful and interesting read for rookie, armchair, and experienced gardeners. Easy to read front to back or section by section, and information can be applied to any region of the United States.”—Library Journal

“Sure to become a favorite among ecologically minded gardeners and conservationists.” —The American Gardener

“Gardeners will walk away from this spirited advice finding creepy crawlers at least a bit more charming.”—Publishers Weekly

“Frederique Lavoipierre brings her wide-ranging knowledge of ecological principles ins sustainable landscapes together with her ability to write winningly about attracting and encouraging insects and the complex relationships between species in the garden.” —Landscape Architecture Magazine

“With beautiful drawings, Garden Allies presents fascinating portraits of the creatures that live in readers’ gardens.” —Sir Reads a Lot

“Frederique Lavoipierre adds her voice to the crescendoing chorus calling for holistic approaches to gardening that work with nature instead of against it. What makes this book different, though, is its singular focus on the living organisms that can help you—if you’ll let them—and the superb organization of the content.” —The Washington Gardener

“A book about all the things in your garden that help it flourish.” —Garden Design Online

“The Washington-based author fills this 320-page book with ways to support wildlife that keeps your yards’ ecology in balance” —The Oregonian

“Frédérique Lavoipierre shares fascinating portraits of these creatures, describing their life cycles and showing how they keep the garden's ecology in balance. Also included is helpful information on how to nurture and welcome these valuable creatures into your garden.” —Irish Times

From the Publisher

08/13/2021

Lavoipierre (former director of education at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden) aims to help readers understand "common garden characters…what they do and why," from bugs to birds. Without getting political, the text explains how to create a beautiful garden that makes the least environmental impact, how to intervene (if at all) when critters and insects appear, and how to contribute to the "long term stability of our…landscape." The idea isn't to fear the creatures in the garden or dismiss them as pests, but to learn more about them. Chapters include "Life Beneath Our Feet"; "Digging Deeper"; "Meet the Beetles"; "The Ground Crew"; and "High and Low: Birds, Bats, and Other Vertebrates." Other features are a number of black-and-white illustrations, a metric-to-U.S. conversion chart, a three-page glossary explaining terms in plain English, and a detailed index. The Resource List is full of beneficial information from websites, books, and films. VERDICT A useful and interesting read for rookie, armchair, and experienced gardeners. Easy to read front to back or section by section, and information can be applied to any region of the United States.—Beth Bland, Milwaukee

Library Journal