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There is something uplifting about having butterflies in your flowerbeds, frogs in your water feature and birds in your bushes, and knowing they're there because of you.
Rich in detail and accessible in style, Gardening for Wildlife is the crucial companion to novices and expert gardeners alike. Adrian Thomas dispels myths and offers new insights and ideas, helping everyone understand what to do so gardens, large or small, can become ideal homes for wildlife.
Building on the success of the award-winning first edition, this expanded and updated edition reflects the latest research and developments in nature-friendly gardening. RSPB Gardening for Wildlife serves as an expert guide to the practical aspects of this rewarding pastime and educates readers about the ecological principles involved, while exploding commonly held misconceptions that often deter people from pursuing a kinder approach to gardening.
Adrian Thomas provides a detailed guide to the many and varied species that can contribute to a natural and healthy garden. Practical sections help you create entire habitats, such as woodland and meadow gardens, in your garden. And the massively expanded catalogue of the top 500 best garden flowers, shrubs and trees for wildlife, now includes colour photos of every species.
If you love wildlife and want to encourage more to visit your garden, this inspirational book will help you sow the seeds and reap the rewards.
5 Foreword
6 Gardening for Wildlife
7 Why Everyone Should Garden for Wildlife
8 Myth-busting
16 So What Is Gardening for Wildlife, Then?
18 How Wildlife Sees Gardens
23 Gardening for Wildlife at a Glance
25 The Right Home for the Right Species
26 Gardening for Birds
68 Gardening for Butterflies
82 Gardening for Mammals
94 Gardening for Reptiles and Amphibians
100 Gardening for Bees
106 Gardening for Dragonflies and Damselflies
108 Gardening for Moths
112 Gardening for Creepy-crawlies
121 Gardening for Primitive Plants and Fungi
123 Creating Different Habitats
124 Making a Woodland Home
128 Making a Scrubland Home
130 Making a Wildflower-meadow Home
134 Making a Heathland Home
136 Making a Cornfield Home
138 Making a Wetland Home
144 Making a Hot-rot Home
146 Gardening for Wildlife in a Big Garden
148 Gardening for Wildlife in a Small Garden
150 Balcony Gardening for Wildlife
152 Low-maintenance Gardening for Wildlife
154 Gardening for Wildlife in the Function Zone
158 Gardening for Wildlife in the Leisure Zone
160 Gardening for Wildlife in the Production Zone
162 Gardening for Wildlife in the Aesthetic Zone
166 Gardening for the Planet
172 The Top 400 Garden Plants for Wildlife
213 Gardening for Wildlife Calendar
227 Measuring Success
231 Acknowledgements
231 Recommended reading
232 Index
239 Photo credits
240 The RSPB
Adrian Thomas is a lifelong birdwatcher and naturalist, and has worked at the RSPB for fifteen years in a wide variety of roles. After contributing for many years to BirdWatching magazine, his writing now also regularly features in Nature's Home and Garden Answers, and has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement.
Reviews of the first edition:
"An excellent companion to the RSPB's Handbook of Garden Wildlife, already published."
– Bookseller (November 2009)
"With 650 colour photos, it shows how wildlife gardening can fit any garden."
– Garden Answers (August 2010)
"Wildlife can be lured to the tiniest gardens, a new book says this week [...]"
– Daily Express (July 2010)
"Thomas writes with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humour [...] the writing style and layout of the book is above all practical, helpful and encouraging. Gardening for Wildlife is an excellent book that [...] manages to be informative and entertaining. It's possibly the most definitive work on the subject in recent years."
– Mathew Wilson, Gardens Illustrated (July 2010)
"Written in a friendly tone, RSPB Gardening for Wildlife offers a huge amount of information. In this year of biodiversity, it will help you make the most of what you've got in your backyard."
– BBC Wildlife (August 2010)
"[...] stuffed with 650 colour photos and shows how wildlife gardening can fit any garden (and any gardener!)"
– The Lady (June 2010)
"[...] a new book just out which proves that you don't have to have a wild garden to have a wildlife-friendly one"
– The Weekly News (July 2010)
"A tip-top book which goes far beyond being a useful list of plants and species. An excellent publication."
– Birds (November 2010)
"From the common ant through to weird and wonderful insects this book shows you more about the natural world in your garden."
– Garden Answers (December 2010)
"Adrian Thomas's highly attractive book will inspire all those who pick it up to turn their gardens into wildlife sanctuaries"
– Sunday Express (January 2011)
"This is the definitive wildlife gardening book that will help you bring your garden alive."
– Choice Magazine (June 2010)
"A practical and contemporary look at how to embrace the little pockets of wildlife that exist in every garden, this book teaches you how to create habitats for all manner of butterflies, bees and other creatures."
– BBC Countryfile magazine (August 2010)
"highly recommended reading"
– Go Green blog (June 2010)
"This inspiring and friendly new book take wildlife gardening to a new level."
– SOS Newsletter (Autumn 2010)
"Every so often a new book comes along that makes you sit up and think. Gardening for Wildlife is just such a book, breaking through the myths around the subject and telling us all we will ever need to know about how to combine wildlife with all other things a garden should be."
– Bradway Bugle, Vol. 14 No.1 (Spring 2011)
