For every gardener who cares about the planet, The Bee-Friendly Garden to designing a bee garden helps you create a stunningly colorful, vibrant, healthy habitat that attracts both honeybees and native bees.
In The Bee-Friendly Garden, award-winning garden designer Kate Frey and bee expert Gretchen LeBuhn provide everything you need to know to create a dazzling garden that helps both the threatened honeybee and our own native bees. No matter how small or large your space, and regardless of whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, just a few simple changes to your garden can fight the effects of colony collapse disorder and the worldwide decline in bee population that threatens our global food chain. There are many personal benefits of having a bee garden as well! Bee gardens:
- contain a gorgeous variety of flowers
- bloom continuously throughout the seasons
- are organic, pesticide-free, and ecologically sustainable
- develop healthy and fertile soil
- attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects
- increase the quantity of your fruit and vegetable harvest
- improve the quality, flavor, and size of your produce
Illustrated with spectacular full-color photos, The Bee-Friendly Garden debunks myths about bees, explains seasonal flower progression, and provides detailed instructions for nest boxes and water features. From "super blooming" flowers to regional plant lists and plants to avoid, The Bee-Friendly Garden is an essential tool for every gardener who cares about the planet and wants to make their yard a welcoming habitat for nature's most productive pollinator.
Kate Frey is a garden designer specializing in sustainable, insect-hospitable landscaping, including the honeybee sanctuary The Melissa Garden (www.themelissagarden.com). She has written for Gardens Illustrated and Pacific Horticulture magazines, is a popular speaker at garden shows and clubs, and lives in Hopland, California.
Gretchen LeBuhn is a professor of biology at San Francisco State University and the author/editor of two books on pollinators, Field Guide to the Common Bees of California and Attracting Native Pollinators. She is the founder and director of The Great Sunflower Project (www.greatsunflower.org), a national citizen science program designed to gather information about bee diversity and activity.
"Most people don't understand the need to plant for pollinators to achieve productive vegetable gardens, or that pollination and beauty go together. This book underlines the importance and possibilities of flower-filled gardens that address our needs and create lovely and productive spaces around our homes."
– Rosalind Creasy, author of Edible Landscaping
"What a delightful, necessary book! The authors deliver its important mission – encouraging bee gardening – simply, graciously, and thoroughly. Find inspiration here, and the tools to reconnect the land you steward with the web of life. Bee happy!"
– Lauren Springer Ogden, garden designer, author of The Undaunted Garden, and coauthor of Plant-Driven Design and Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens
"This book will make bees happy and healthy in gardens across the country."
– Laurie Davies Adams, executive director of Pollinator Partnership