Natural Gardening in Small Spaces
Kingsbury's sound advice orients gardeners towards thinking and planning in terms of an ecosystem.
Booklist
With the growing recognition that a wisely and sensitively planted garden has a lot to offer to wildlife and the food web, more and more people are looking for ways to make their gardens environmentally friendly. However, gardeners have tended to assume that they need a lot of space to create habitats for wildlife and to evoke wild and natural places. In Natural Gardening in Small Spaces, renowned plantsman Noël Kingsbury refutes that presumption, showing how even in a small garden you can create a sustainable ecosystem that looks great — and, once established, largely looks after itself. More than 150 glorious photographs of small natural gardens provide visual confirmation of Noël Kingsbury's contention that even the smallest garden can provide a natural haven.
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 176 pp.
- Book dimensions: 9 x 10⅝ in. (230 x 270 mm.)
- Images: 150 color photos, 26 tables
- ISBN-10: 0881928151
- ISBN-13: 9780881928150
Media reviews
"The author imparts a working knowledge of how plants grow in nature."
—Science News
"Whether in a city or modest suburban yard, or a country environment, Kingsbury's sound advice orients gardeners towards thinking and planning in terms of an ecosystem as they develop a design scheme that joins together aesthetic elements and handsome plant combinations."
—Alice Joyce, Booklist
"Kingsbury walks would-be greenthumbs through shady gardens, backyard grasslands and drier habitats, suggesting plant species and design ideas and offering tips."
—Publishers Weekly
"Refreshing resource for the habitat designer."
—Lynette Walther, Camden Herald
"It's no wonder that Kingsbury has published 12 garden books and writes for many publications ... I first discovered his popular book Natural Gardening in Small Spaces on a friend's coffee table and stayed up all night devouring it."
—Barbara Blossom Ashmun, Portland Tribune
"If you are at all interested in natural gardens, whether amateur or professional, and are not already quite experienced with them, you should find this a very readable and useful reference."
—Leonard Perry, Perry's Perennial Pages
"Well–written and filled with lush glossy pages of wild gardens, this book is a rose among dandelions."
—Doctor's Review
"Good ... on the designing–the–space issue."
—Jamaica Kincaid, New York Times
"Fulfills the need for many gardeners to cut back the time spent in their gardens yet provide a haven away from the busy world."
—National Gardener
"In chapters that nicely mix explanatory text with color photos, Kingsbury walks would-be greenthumbs through shady gardens, backyard grasslands and dryer habitats, suggesting plant species and design ideas and offering tips on how to care for different kinds of plants in different kinds of envirinments."
—Publishers Weekly
"This title sure takes the guesswork out of native gardening."
—Connie Krochmal, Bella Online
"Kingsbury's friendly, no-nonsense instruction can be applied to small gardens or large gardens divided into smaller spaces."
—Barbara Blossom Ashmun, Portland Tribune
"Shows how even small, urban spaces can be adapted to sustainable and ecological gardening."
—Perennials
"Kingsbury explains how plant communities work and then suggests suitable plants for many kinds of situations."
—Marty Figley, Michigan Observer and Eccentric
"An important how-to book for it shows how today's small gardens can be made into sustainable ecosystems that need little care, conserve resources, and nuture wildlife."
—Avant Gardener
About the author
Noël Kingsbury
A lover of wild spaces, Noël Kingsbury is especially fond of the way plants group naturally when left to their own devices. Noël is firmly in the vanguard of new developments, playing a major role in popularizing naturalistic and sustainable planting.
Read more about Noël Kingsbury
Big Gardens in Small Spaces
The New Low-Maintenance Garden