This is a great reference for designing beautiful, ecological gardens, using a plant community approach. The book focuses on California native plant communities (plants that grow together because of similar adaptations), including bluffs and cliffs, redwood forest, desert gardens, montane meadows, mixed evergreen forest, oak woodlands, grasslands, chaparral, riparian woodlands, and wetlands. The authors are Glenn Keator and Alrie Middlebrook; the publisher is University of California Press.
For each garden design, the authors provide a unique representation of the garden plan, practical project information, descriptions of plants and the plant community, and information about places to visit to see the plant community in nature. The resource section provides a comprehensive list of native plant sources, books, botanical gardens and arboreta, public gardens, websites, and a seasonal calendar for managing native gardens.
Glenn Keator is a botanist, author, and lecturer with extensive knowledge of California native plants. I’ve had the pleasure of taking his Mediterranean plant ID class at Merritt College. Alrie Middlebrook founded Middlebrook Gardens in San Jose, which specializes in designing California native gardens, and is also an author and lecturer. I was intrigued by her use of succession (moving through a series of simple-to-complex planting stages, culminating in a final stage) in her garden designs.
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