The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planting and Maintaining the Eco-Friendly Habitat Garden

Beautifully written and clearly organized. Filled with color photos of plants that are great inspiration for working with specific sunlight and different soil types. My copy is now full of marked pages for reference.

Wonderful book! Very well-written, readable and to the point. Includes everything you need to know about the subject. I especially liked that the pictures all had captions explaining the photo or naming the flower or bird, insect or animal. The end of the book includes lists of native flowers and shrubs for ease of identification. The go-to book on the subject. I highly recommend it.

The Green Garden is a useful tool for one just starting on the journey of native gardening. The photos are beautiful (although in some cases, the landscapes shown will be terribly overgrown and unbalanced in a few years-when the pictured trees clobber the nearby shrubs - see page 11). Much of the book is a very basic review of ecology, with ideas of how to work it into your homescape, followed by lists of plants to consider for different sites. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with a background in ecology and horticulture, but it does have a place for the beginner. The binding is a big problem. It won't be long before it cracks and the pages begin to fall out. I'm afraid to open it too far!

This is the most outstanding "Bible" for anyone committed to the joy and knowledge of developing a sustainable, beautiful property in face of the long term challenges presented by our climate changes and our vulnerable insects and wildlife. If I could, I'd mail this book to everyone I know. I am a member of the Audubon Society and also a lifelong advocate of modifying the American obsession with the perfectly green gorgeous monoculture lawn in favor of something more messy and alive. I love watching my bunny munch at dusk. Did you know that rabbits love to eat crab grass? Thank you, Ms Sousa.

If you want to garden to help the creatures that share New England with us, get this book. I've had it for some time now, and still find myself going back to it, to decide what to plant next.

I recently purchased The Green Garden by Ellen Sousa on the recommendation of a colleague. Based on the summaries I'd read, and the recommendation, I had hopped that this was a book I would be able to recommend to clients, friends and colleagues. I was hoping for a easy to read, accessible layman's guide to help introduce and encourage ecological gardening, one of my passions.Unfortunately, after the first few chapters I started stumbling in my reading due to significant grammar and punctuation errors. From page 51 to page 90, where I stopped because I was worn out, I have scribbled corrections on almost every page.I am a horticulturalist and educator, not an editor, so it really bothers me when I am tripped up by poor writing and editing: lack of parallel structure, missing nouns and verbs, identical text in picture captions and the main text, even a few horticultural errors.I hope they can fix the issues and that a second publishing will be worth recommending. The intent, general content and concepts are a must for every homeowner.

I agree with all other 5 star reviews... Additionally, I would say this is one of the best books period on the subject, and particularly for the New England area!

Really nice introduction to how to create a habitat-appropriate New England garden. As a novice gardener, I found the tips really helpful. Really comprehensive and hugely useful.