Janet Marinelli

A collection of brief articles, probably solicited for this booklet, dealing with a variety of approaches to natural lawns. The gamut runs from conventional grass, but managed without chemicals, to ground coverings of sedges or moss, to prairie restorations.
Since I want to avoid mowing, and have a steep slope to my yard, I was looking for resources for useful sedge species which will spread without clumping and which have a shorter maximum height. My previous home had Pensylvania Sedge, which worked great.
Index included. Rated only 3* because there is not a great deal of detail on growing some of the more unusual lawn alternatives, the article on sedge lawns stresses specific named varieties (which are likely outmoded or unavailable now), and no sources are given for moss lawns.… (mais)

I got this because it was mentioned somewhere in my traipsing around in native plant info, and I was about to visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which publishes this book and others of its ilk. It is short and simple and unremarkable information-wise, but it is nicely organized with essentials for attracting birds and butterflies and beneficial insects, basic descriptions of various environments such as forests and floodplains, lists of appropriate native plants for different regions, instructions for spaces as small as a backyard border or window box. Nowhere near exhaustive, but a useful item to have around.

(read 12 Sep 2013)… (mais)