The Natural Habitat Garden

This book is a celebration of gardens that feature native plants. Druse has divided the continental US into 4 ecological gardening areas: grasslands, drylands, wetlands, and woodlands. He then examines exemplar gardens from each area, explaining the gardeners' philosophy, ideas, or special challenges to overcome. He gives particular attention to gardeners who have minimized or eliminated grassy lawns, replacing them with native wildflowers and plants. At the end of the book, there is a short section with general advice and hints about how to begin gardening with native plants. There are also resource lists of native plant societies, places to visit, and books for recommended reading. The book is beautifully illustrated with high quality photographs of gardens as well as individual plants. This book provides useful inspiration and ideas about how gardens can fit local environmental conditions. In the gardens that Druse celebrates, inputs in terms of chemicals and even time are at a minimum. Nonetheless, in this book, Druse is not a strict organic gardening enthusiast, since he does suggest using chemical herbicides in some situations. This book does not provide much in the way of specific design advice, and the only information about how to actually begin a garden bed is in the short appendix at the end of the book. Instead of being a garden design book, this is more a picture book, a celebration of the effects one can achieve when focusing on native plants.

Another GREAT book by Ken Druse!!! I pull this book out whenever I need some gardening inspiration. There's nothing like developing a garden that is in harmony with the surroundings. I hate to admit it but I look mostly at the pictures in this book to get ideas - the text is really well written too though. I'd definitely buy it all over again

At last we have a book with 500 color photographs of gardens from around the Country made exclusively with indigenous plants. This is a ground-breaking book which I hope will have an ever-growing audience. It is a must for landscape professionals and all gardeners who care about the environment. 'Would make a great text book for Universities.