Attract Beautiful Creatures to Your Backyard with Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Southern California
The presence of birds, bees, and butterflies suggests a healthy, Earth-friendly place. These most welcome guests also bring joy to those who appreciate watching them. Now you can turn your yard into a perfect habitat that attracts them and, more importantly, helps them thrive. Professional nature photographer and botanist George Oxford Miller provides all the information in his must-have guide called Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Southern California.
The complex relationships in nature can fill us with a deep sense of mystery and awe. You can look into the starry night sky and either feel insignificant in the scope of the universe or thrill at being a part of the vast majestic cosmos. You can get the same feeling in your backyard when you see a butterfly or bee dancing from flower to flower, sipping nectar and gathering pollen. When you watch a butterfly perched on a flower you get a glimpse into an evolutionary pathway that stretches back unbroken for 150 million years.
What good will a small backyard garden do to help sustain local pollinator populations? You will be pleasantly surprised! Wildlife in California’s coastal sage scrub, chaparral, valley grasslands, deserts, and mountains lives in what ecologists call a “patchy environment.”
Butterflies, bees, birds, and other pollinators forage over large areas, depending on their mobility, to find often-ephemeral patches of food, water, shelter, and nesting sites. Spotty thunderstorms may stimulate a desert or foothills mass bloom that lasts only a week or so. Likewise, seasonal rains may trigger a temporary bloom of grass- land wildflowers, while a perennially trickling spring may support a small, summer-long succession of blooms.
Learn how to landscape and create pollinator gardens with native plants. The book begins with an in-depth introduction to native pollinators and to birds. It’s followed by a “field guide” section for more than 100 native plants that are widely available; easy to care for; and provide great benefit to birds, bees, and butterflies. The species are organized by level of sunlight needed and then by plant types. Each species includes full-color photographs and information about hardiness zones, what they are most likely to attract, soil requirements, light levels, and George’s notes.
As an added bonus, you’ll make use of blooming charts, tips on attracting specific species, and more! Plus, the invaluable garden plans and projects show you just what to do and can be customized to suit your own specific interests.
Plan, plant, and grow your beautiful garden, with native plants that benefit your favorite creatures to watch and enjoy.
About the author: Professional nature photographer and botanist George Miller is a lifelong resident of the West.
He has lived in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, and he has written six guidebooks to the Southwest, including the best-selling trio Landscaping with Native Plants of the Southwest, Landscaping with Native Plants of Texas, and Landscaping with Native Plants of Southern California.
He is the author of the Wildflowers quick guides to Arizona & New Mexico, Texas, Southern California, and Colorado. He also wrote a “Plant of the Month” column for New Mexico magazine and is former president of the Albuquerque chapter of the Native Plant Society of New Mexico, where he still conducts workshops and programs on how to create your own backyard pollinator oasis.
Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Southern California is part our Nature-Friendly Garden series. Also available are Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Upper Midwest and Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Southeast, Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies: Southwest, and Native Plant Gardening for Birds, Bees & Butterflies: South.
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