Steven B. Carroll and Steven D. Salt. Ecology for Gardeners. Timber Press. 2004.

Growing a garden to accent your home seems like a simple activity until you read Ecology for Gardeners. Carroll and Salt take care to fully explain how plants and other critters live in your garden. Some information presented is found in every other garden book too1. I doubt if many gardeners have taken the time to learn how even protozoa and other microscopic critters play an important role in how well your garden grows.

I really admire the ability of these authors to write a scientific book without using excessive technical language. The material is easy to understand if you take time to think about what you read. It definitely is not a book to read straight through! You'll be challenged to learn the important roles that nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases play in the soil. You'll also learn about other minerals and chemicals essential for your garden.

Once you've learned the basics of how soil ecology works, you're challenged to plant gardens that cooperative with nature instead of fighting to grow plants that are clearly not intended to grow in your climate and/or soil conditions.

Recommendation

This is an important book to read before turning over the first shovel of sod to create a new garden. I strongly urge both current and potential gardeners to learn how to manage their landscape in an ecologically friendly manner. You'll be happier with the choices you make as to trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous plants to use in your garden borders. It is possible to have an outstanding garden and be ecologically responsible at the same time.

The book uses an easy to read print style and contains a section of photographs illustrating various plants and landscapes mentioned in the text.

I also recommend this book for a class on ecology for gardeners. It would make excellent textbook supplementing college level classes in ecology.