Read Online A New Garden Ethic Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future Benjamin Vogt 9780865718555 Books

Product details Paperback 192 pages Publisher New Society Publishers (September 11, 2017) Language English ISBN-10 0865718555

A New Garden Ethic Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future Benjamin Vogt 9780865718555 Books Reviews

• What a beautiful and touching book. It brought me to tears. The author somehow summed up everything I felt in my heart but never put into words. As a new gardener, I'm learning as I go, but I'm in the process of creating a wildlife habitat with native plants. I live in a "vanilla" suburb where everyone has the same boring hedges and ornamentals, but my backyard is full of native wildflowers, bird and butterfly friendly native shrubs, larval and host plants, birdhouses, bird baths, safe "cover" for the birds and it's breathtaking. I don't use pesticides or chemicals and everything is thriving. Local plants need less attention and the "good" bugs take care of the outsiders. It's a win-win. To me it's paradise. As far as the birds, I've counted 32 separate species visiting our backyard and our first butterflies are emerging, as well as rabbits and a chipmunk. I love them all. I've even planted red clover and alfalfa for the rabbits as a truce to keep them out of my flowers. Your book is a gift and "defiant compassion" is right. I plan to keep on keeping on!
• Good overview of the state of thinking on ecological ethics in the landscape industry at the moment. Overall, engaging and well-written. I appreciate Ben’s chapter on the relationship between religious belief systems and ecological thinking - that’s an aspect that isn’t often addressed in the industry. Some thought provoking parallels between landscape design and environmental/social activism.
• I finished reading this book several days ago, but it will stay with me, I know, for a long time. It isn't simply a gardening book, but a passionate and compelling appeal for awareness. It's a kind of guide, an attempt to reconnect us to the living outdoors. In all the hue and cry over the havoc being wrecked on our beautiful planet, this beautifully written book gives real facts, many of them heartbreaking, all of them fascinating. I was brought to tears. I wrote in the margins, and a kind of resolve hardened as I read. Recently I built a little house and named her the Bee. Now this book will be my guide to building her garden. I urge you to have a look even if you don't garden. For the care of our earth ... for the love of her....
• I began marking things I wanted to be able to find again - underlining passages, dog-earing pages, drawing a line along the side of a paragraph -- and now the book is all marked up! So many wise and well-put comments, I hardly have a page that's not marked!
• I teach a Theory of Landscape Design course at a community college and have included this book as required reading for my students. We have engaging very thoughtful discussions with this book. Most of my students comment that this is an eye-opener for them and they have not considered this way of thinking when designing landscapes. Vogt's writing is informative, and personal without being eccentric. I recommend this for both hobby gardeners to landscape professionals.
• A beautiful and potent read on the ethics of gardening. Vogt asks the increasingly important question, "who are we gardening for?" and underscores the importance of sharing the world's land, now mostly dominated by humans, with our neighboring species. Of course, the best way to do that, the place to begin, is with native plants.
  
  Vogt's message of "defiant compassion" is deeply heartfelt and will come to your mind in the garden center, in the dirt, and hopefully lots of other places as you watch the magic of restoration happen in your space.
  
  This book belongs on your shelf right beside Douglas Tallamy's "Bringing Nature Home" and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (once you've read it cover-to-cover, of course!).
• This book changed my perspective on gardening. From the start I was reminded of thoughts I have had while looking out at wildflowers and grasses growing along highways and fields. Why don't we see these in yards and gardens? Vogt says we should! And not just for our enjoyment but to support the ecosystem. A New Garden Ethic is beautifully written with Vogt's passion for restoring the prairie ecosystem being the essence. He challenges the reader to be nonconformists in our gardens, planting for wildlife rather than ourselves or the neighbors, or societal norms.
• I have been following Benjamin Vogt's writings and photography for a while now, and this book certainly expands on his prior writings. I appreciate his focus on defining nature, natural and natives [as in plants] a bit differently than we have seen in the past, bringing in ethics and ecology, as well as the beauty of nature. Nature really is a community, and we need to be part of it.