GoNativesNow

Resource Musts


Here are three books that all native plants and nature lovers must have in their personal library:

  • Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, by Douglas W. Tallamy. This is the book that upended how I look at yards and gardening. It helped me see gardens in a new way, as home and food for wildlife as well as lovely plants to admire for their beauty and aesthetic value. Dr. Tallamy is an Entomologist who believes that we all can make a difference for wildlife and gives tips how to begin. In my book Doug Tallamy wrote, "Garden as if life depends on it."
  • The Midwestern Native Garden: Native Alternatives to Nonnative Flowers and Plants, by Charlotte Adelman and Bernard L. Schwartz. This book helps you transform your existing ornamental gardens to native ones by providing lists of native plants with similar form, color, and growing conditions to the ornamentals you may have now. Five years ago, my gardens were approximately one-third native. Now they are more than four-fifths native. This book helped me do this.
  • The Woody Plants of Ohio, by Lucy Braun. Trees are so very important to wildlife and to us. Dr. Braun provides so much more information than simply a guide to the trees growing in Ohio. She will help you figure out what kind of tree will grow best where you live and what tree will provide the most food for wildlife. If you can only plant one native, make it an oak.
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