The bee-friendly Garden by Kate Frey and Gretchen LeBuhn Book Review

 

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.

My Thoughts:

As a beekeeper I have been learning that not only do you need to learn how to manage your beehives and about the honey bees themselves. I have to help them survive by having plants that help them thrive in this time of decline for the bees.

I was given a mixture of bee friendly seeds to plant my first year of beekeeping. I also bought some native wildflowers to plant in my yard. I was surprised the second season of what I seen in my garden. My garden came alive with native bees, wasp, and so many interesting insects. I have never seen so many species of bees prior. It was truly a delight to watch for the whole family.

We sold our house this fall and we are starting from scratch with a garden. This time around I wanted to learn about plants for the honey bees, native bees, and other pollinators. I want to have plants that are in bloom all season. I also want a healthy garden.

I was pretty excited to see, “The bee-friendly Garden “come up for review. I have to say that it was beyond my expectation. I was expecting it just to cover plants. I was delighted that it talked about the many different species of bees in detail. It covers how to identify native bees and what they like, how they nest, and so much more like birds and butterflies.

This is a paperback book with 224 pages. Every page has stunning photographs of flowers, gardens, and bees. It was easy to read for the average gardener. It also had a lot of information and I learned a lot.

Contents:

Introduction: The Benefits of a Bee-Friendly Garden

Chapter 1: Our Friends, the Bees

Chapter 2: Plants for Your Bee-Friendly Garden

Chapter 3: Bee-Friendly Plants for Edible Gardens

Chapter 4: Bee Garden Basics

Chapter 5: Designing Your Bee Garden

Chapter 6: Beyond Your Own Backyard-Becoming a Bee Activist

Resources

Regional Plant List

Southeast Region

South Central Region

Southwest Region

Pacific Northwest Region

Rocky Mountain/Intermountain West Region

Northeast/Midwest/Mid-Atlantic Region

Basically this book will take you from researching what you need to plant, how to plant a garden that will appeal to bees. The book is very comprehensive.

I would recommend this book to any gardener who is interested in helping out our pollinating friends, beekeeper, and a person who just wants to plant a stunning garden.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this book from Blogging for Books- Waterbrook for free in order to write this review. All thoughts and opinions are mine and were not subject to editing from the publisher.