SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

*** - Library necessity
** - Highly recommended
* - Strongly recommended

Dwight Baldwin, Jr., Judith De Luce, and Carl Pletsch editors, Beyond Preservation: Restoring and Inventing Landscapes, University of Minnesota Press, 1994
Interesting perspectives on whether we should be preserving, conserving, or designing ecosystems.

William Cullina, Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines, Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
An excellent informational source for native plants that can be used in the cultivated landscape.

** Rick Darke, The American Woodland Garden, Timber Press, 2002.
Perhaps the best book that illustrates the aesthetic value of our woodlands and how to design landscapes within the context of the eastern deciduous forest. Fabulous photographs of individual plants and cultivated landscapes.

Rick Darke, The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses: Sedges, Rushes, Retios, Cat-tails, and Selected Bamboos, Timber Press, 1999.
Great resource for information and photos of native grasses. Be careful not to be tempted by the non-native invasive grasses listed.

Rick Darke, The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Livable Landscapes, Timber Press, 2007.
An expanded version of The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses with many images of cultivated landscapes with grasses. Same caveat regarding invasive grasses applies.

Ken Druse, The Natural Shade Garden, Clarkson Potter Publishers, 1992.
A good photographic encyclopedia of shade plants. Native plants are not emphasized, but are present in this book.

*** Gary Hightshoe, Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Urban and Rural America, John Wiley & Sons, 1988.
This is the Dirr of native plants (and like Dirr its expensive). If you plan on designing with native plants you must have this book to be in your library. Lists plant communities associated with each species.

Lorraine Johnson, 100 Easy-to-Grow Native Plants for American Gardens in Temperate Zones, Firefly Books, 1999
Easy-to-Grow and easy to read book on native perennials.

** Samuel B. Jones, Jr. and Leonard E. Foote, Gardening with Native Wild Flowers, Timber Press, 1990
The perfect companion book on perennials for Bill Cullina’s Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines.

Stephen W. Kress, The Audubon Society Guide to Attracting Birds, Cornell University Press, 2006
The book on creating bird habitats in our designed landscapes.

Zora Lathan and Thistle A. Cone, Ecoscaping Back to the Future: Native Plant Rain Gardens and Xeriscapes Examples From the Chesapeake Ecology Center, Chesapeake Ecology Center, 2005
A wonderful “how-to” book presents easy installation instructions for rain gardens and xeriscapes in our region.

** Nelda Matheny and James R. Clark, Trees and Development: A Technical Guide to Preservation of Trees During Land Development, International Society of Arboriculture, 1998
The best book available on tree preservation during construction. Lists and rates each species’ tolerance to disturbance.

Sherry Mitchell, Naturescaping, Appreciating, Preserving and Restoring Reston’s Natural Resources, Reston Association.
Virginia
A quick read that highlights a specific area in our region and conservation landscaping.

Edith Roberts & Elsa Rehman, American Plants for American Gardens, University of Georgia Press, 1929, 1996
A classic primer on America native plants and their plant associations.

Leslie Jones Sauer, The Once and Future Forest, Island Press, 1998.
Visionary Leslie Sauer provides a real “in-the-dirt” analysis of preserving and restoring forests from the perspective of landscape architecture.

* Sara Stein, Noah’s Garden, Houghton Mifflin, 1993
Presents conservation landscaping from a layperson’s perspective as she is transforming her property from an ecological wasteland to a cornucopia of biodiversity. Very reader friendly.

Sara Stein, Planting Noah’s Garden, Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
The nuts and bolts of how Sara Stein planted her property.

*** Douglas W. Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens, Timber Press, 2007
OK, this is my new favorite book. Tallamy makes the quintessential argument (backed up with research) for why planting native plants in our urban and suburban landscapes is so important. This is the wildlife and native plants book we have all been waiting for.

*** U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping
I can not design without this paperback on my desk. Mine is dog-eared and tattered from use. All of the plants of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed are listed here with cultural conditions the plant naturally grows in, the geological and geographical regions the plant is native to, its natural habitat, and its wildlife value.