A valuable and artfully crafted guide to tending a naturalistic garden. From plantsman Kelly Norris, author of
New Naturalism, comes a
much-needed handbook to maintaining today’s natural gardens. Naturalistic plantings, overflowing with biodiverse communities of plants, are filling front and backyards around the globe with colorful blooms, easy-care plants, and wildlife habitat. But caring for a naturalistic garden is vastly different than caring for a traditional home landscape of carefully manicured plants separated by mulch and regularly primped and pruned. In Y
our Natural Garden, tending your garden properly means understanding its connection to the greater natural world and using
garden care methods that mimic nature instead of controlling it.
Page by page, you’re guided through all the seasons of a naturalistic garden’s life and the tasks and to-dos that come with each of them. Including how to:
- Encourage and establish complexity in a new garden
- Promote growth and variation by letting your plants self propagate
- Determine when and what to edit, and when it’s best to let chaos rein
- Decide if and when weeding is necessary
- Foster the insects and other animals that rely on your plants
- Understand succession in the naturalistic garden and why it’s important
- Know when it’s time to cut back your garden and how to do it right
Verdant photographs accompany the text throughout, offering
examples of well-tended naturalistic plantings and the tasks that are needed to properly care for them.
Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning author and plantsman, and the former director of horticulture and education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, a revitalized public garden in Des Moines, Iowa. Over his career, his work has been featured in The New York Times, Organic Gardening, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Garden Design, and in numerous local and regional media appearances.
As a writer and photographer, he regularly contributes to popular gardening magazines like Country Gardens, Fine Gardening, The American Gardener, and a variety of industry trade publications. As a speaker, he has garnered acclaim for his high-energy, zealous presentations on the national stage, leading many to call him one of the rising stars of American horticulture.
Kelly has been fortunate to earn recognition for his work from a variety of organizations, including three awards from Iowa State Horticultural Society (2009–2011) for his service and contributions to horticulture in Iowa; early career and young professional awards from the Perennial Plant Association (2011), GardenComm (2018) and the American Horticultural Society (2018); the Iowa Author Award for Special Interest Writing (2013), the youngest Iowan to be recognized in the history of the awards program; and a fellowship from the Chanticleer Foundation (2015) for his curatorial and plant exploration work at the Botanical Garden.
Introduction
Section 1 Place
Section 2 Complexity
Section 3 Legibility
Section 4 Flow
Epilogue
Glossary for the Ecological Gardener
References
About the Author
Index
Other versions by this Author