Discover How You Can Help Nature Thrive: A New Approach to Conservation Starting in Your Own Backyard

Pipperz: Second time reading is as inspiring as the first! Important reading and reflection and reaction and action. Thanks for pushing us in the right direction.

United States on Oct 04, 2023

BL: Homegrown National Park is an outstanding concept and an important one as well. A wealth of information and an outstanding treatise on our place in nature and our ability to make a significant change.

United States on Oct 01, 2023

birdlady: This is a nice book that delves very deep into why we should only plant native plants and how it all effects all wildlife but it is not a lovely book on nature. It’s telling us all the ways we are failing nature and done very dryly. I can’t decide if I’m keeping it yet. As someone very aware of how we affect the natural world I found this book unappealing.

United States on Jul 18, 2023

Dave: I started reading at Chapter 7 because invasive species are of particular interest to me. And I was not disappointed. In fact, that was the best explanation I have ever read of why we need to eradicate invasive species. It was scientific, but he explained it clearly so a non-scientist like me can understand it. And not just understand it, but be inspired to act.

The idea that I can do my part to change the world, in my backyard is very empowering and resonates deeply with me. What a great concept, which is transferable to so many other issues.

It's a beautiful book, very well illustrated.

So then I went back to the beginning and started reading from the introduction onward. And I was so glad I started in the middle because the book starts very slowly and it takes several chapters before it starts to become clear where he's going with it. If I had started on page one, I may have given up after a couple of chapters.

For example, he writes bios of two of his environmentalist heroes, and sure they are great guys, but those sections could have been easily omitted without undermining the narrative.

Some of his early ramblings are cringe. "We have now...

United States on May 31, 2023

Bonnie: I have gardened for years and this book was an eye opener on how each of us can contribute to bringing our native lands back to what they once were in our own backyards, to restore our ecosystem.

Canada on Mar 15, 2022

A. R. Laidlaw: Very readable. It’s not enough to feed birds seeds or fat in winter, we need to grow native plants that are food for caterpillars that in turn are food for baby birds, to reduce the loss of birds and insects. Trees such as oaks, native cherries and willows are particularly productive. Reduce the area of your lawn, don’t spray, replace outdoor lights with motion sensitive ones - these are some of the suggestions to reverse the loss of species.

Canada on Mar 13, 2022

Derek Konieczny: Just a wonderful book that informs and inspires. Take the ideas from this book and put them to use in your own garden, your neighbours, and your community.

Canada on Feb 18, 2022

Buffy: My husband was interested in this book so I bought it for him. He loved it. He devoured it in two sittings. Many of the things it talked about my husband has implemented in our yard with his new found interest in gardening and his long family history of environmentalists. If your interested in what you can do to help the environment he recommends this book. He says it is well written so as to keep you reading.

Canada on Aug 01, 2021

Sarah HodgkinsonSarah Hodgkinson: This book makes me feel even more confident about getting rid of ALL the lawn on our property five years ago. It's not lost on me that "lawn" and "yawn" rhyme. Every year we enjoy an ever-changing nature show from our front porch and back deck.

Canada on Jun 07, 2021

Mike Barnett: Professor Tallamy has a vision for our future that you need to read about. Imagine a world (I'm borrowing from his eighth chapter now) where you may look out of any window in your house and see a view of a national park, filled with wildlife and the vegetation that makes up their natural habitats. This is Tallamy's call for all of us to consider our properties as potential habitat for the birds, insects, and other critters that have been consistently misplaced by our yards. So what does he claim is "Nature's Best Hope?" It is plants native to our region, not the exotics we so often plant that can't be used by our native insects. It is then the native insects that so many birds and animals feed upon and serve to their young. It is then the native birds and animals that eat the insects, and from there the animals that eat them. "Nature's Best Hope" is returning our neighborhoods to as natural a habitat as we can make it after the bulldozers have left. It's giving back to our fellow inhabitants a place where they can live, grow and reproduce. It's returning as much of our property to a natural state as we comfortably can for their benefit. WE, then, are "Nature's Best Hope." This is...

United States on Mar 15, 2020