Chicago Botanic Garden

Education — Lenhardt Library

Current Books & Book Reviews

PHOTO: bookcover

Judith Larner Lowry.
The Landscaping Ideas of Jays: A Natural History of the Backyard Restoration Garden.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Paper, 280 pp., ISBN 0–520–24956–1, $24.95.

In this practical guide to restoring the native California landscape in the home garden, author Judith Lowry shares her personal experiences. She describes learning through her own garden and from pioneers and Native Americans in pursuit of landscape restoration. She organizes the project by seasons of the year, focusing on the needs of the animal and plant life that dwell there and the patterns of their life cycles. Even though the focus of the text is restoration of the California landscape, the practices that she suggests may be applied to landscapes everywhere.

— Marilyn K. Alaimo, garden writer and volunteer, Chicago Botanic Garden.