The passion and urgency that inspired WWI and WWII Victory Gardens is needed today to meet another threat to our food supply and our environment-the steep decline of pollinators. The Pollinator Victory Garden offers practical solutions for winning the war against the demise of these essential animals.
Pollinators are critical to our food supply and responsible for the pollination of the vast majority of all flowering plants on our planet. Pollinators include not just bees, but many different types of animals, including insects and mammals. Beetles, bats, birds, butterflies, moths, flies, and wasps can be pollinators.
But, many pollinators are in trouble, and the reality is that most of our landscapes have little to offer them. Our residential and commercial landscapes are filled with vast green pollinator deserts, better known as lawns. These monotonous green expanses are ecological wastelands for bees and other pollinators.
With The Pollinator Victory Garden, you can give pollinators a fighting chance. Learn how to transition your landscape into a pollinator haven by creating a habitat that includes pollinator nutrition, larval host plants for butterflies and moths, and areas for egg laying, nesting, sheltering, overwintering, resting, and warming. Find a wealth of information to support pollinators while improving the environment around you:
* The importance of pollinators and the specific threats to their survival* How to provide food for pollinators using native perennials, trees, and shrubs that bloom in succession* Detailed profiles of the major pollinator types and how to attract and support each one* Tips for creating and growing a Pollinator Victory Garden, including site assessment, planning, and planting goals* Project ideas like pollinator islands, enriched landscape edges, revamped foundation plantings, meadowscapes, and other pollinator-friendly lawn alternatives
The time is right for a new gardening movement. Every yard, community garden, rooftop, porch, patio, commercial, and municipal landscape can help to win the war against pollinator decline with The Pollinator Victory Garden.
The Pollinator Victory Garden is a new tutorial guide for attracting and protecting pollinators (bees, beetles, butterflies, bats, and others) in the home garden. Written by Kim Eierman and due out 7th Jan 2020, it's 160 pages and will be available in ebook and paperback formats.
This is a very well written and accessible book full of good general advice for doing what we can to support natural pollinators on our own as homeowners and gardeners. I appreciated that the author didn't primarily concentrate on the plight of domestic honeybees (which honestly are not native to most places outside of southern Europe and are thus more 'honey cows' than wild pollinators).
The book has a logical and easy to follow format. The chapters proceed logically and thematically: what pollinators are and what they do, habitat, forage/food, specific pollinators, and specific garden planning and execution. Additionally, the book includes comprehensive appendices covering plant lists, checklists, troubleshooting tips, resource and informational links, and a cross-referenced index.
There are so many books about every single facet of beekeeping and gardening (and beekeeping WITH gardening), but there aren't very many in my experience with a strong emphasis on attracting and supporting indigenous pollinators for diversity and biome health. This is a good one.
Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
