Here is a book review for Amazon I wrote for a fabulous new book I recently read, Garden Revolution. This is another in a line of several garden books that have been being published recently for the ecologically inclined gardener or landscape professional.
This book won’t give you a landscape plan, but it may start you on a new way to garden – Jim
Here’s my review or click here if you would rather just read it on Amazon:
“Larry Weaner and Thomas Christopher’s new book, “Garden Revolution”, is the third in a trifecta of highly anticipated garden / landscaping books I have been eagerly anticipating for the last several years.
The other two were The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden by Doug Tallamy and Rick Darke and Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West.
Tallamy and Darke’s book expanded brilliantly on the main idea presented in Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, Updated and Expanded, that being how native plants in the cultivated and managed landscapes can provide provide a lifeline to the wildlife we share our planet with. This book also offered real world info on plant selection and the gorgeous photography of Rick Darke to inspire us. I actually now recommend this book over Bringing Nature Home, as I feel it more effectively inspires action.
While I like Rainer and West’s book, to me it did fall a little flat of expectations. It is a great read with much useful information on designing resilient plant communities. This is probably more the case of a book not being at the right spot in the reader’s development than any problems with the book. This book just didn’t strike a chord for me at the time I read it, but it very well might for you.
This is not the case with Larry’s book. Garden Revolution is groundbreaking and hit the perfect chord with where I am trying to take my knowledge and career. Think of it as a practical ecology book for gardeners and landscapers. While I have read other books that cover ecology and gardening, such as Principles of Ecological Landscape Design. That book seemed to focus on the science of ecology as much on the practicality of gardening. After reading this book, I will have to reread it though as I may be more ready for it.
Larry’s book is written from the viewpoint of a practitioner, while not dumbing down the content. It is easy to digest and a pleasure to read.
I spent almost a decade as a gardener in a highly regarded Japanese Garden using pruning to exert tremendous control over plants to create the psychological effect of a natural scene. Now in this book, I am learning how to use natural processes to do the same thing, with a lot less effort I might add. The weed control strategies alone make reading this book extremely helpful.
Whether talking about ecological concepts such as r- and K-selected species or explaining how to specify a seed mix for a meadow, the landscape professional has a wealth of practical and useful material to absorb here. There is a wealth of specific management techniques such as using Mother Colony expansion zones, I am sure most Landscape professionals have never considered.
Larry and Thomas have accomplished much with this book. I am convinced landscaping must be done differently and this book helps to show the way.
This is and I am convinced it will stay for a long time my favorite gardening / landscape book. I can’t recommend it enough.”
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