Want more animals in your garden? These two books can help

A garden can offer animals more than a place to pass through. Plants provide food, while leaves and stems can shelter insects through winter.

For readers who want to help wildlife at home, a book can offer a useful starting point. It can help explain what animals need before you spend money on plants or equipment.

Douglas W. Tallamy’s Nature’s Best Hope comes in two versions aimed at different readers. Both connect everyday gardening choices with the needs of wildlife.

Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard explains how private gardens can provide habitat.

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Tallamy focuses on native plants: plants that grow naturally in a particular region. The publisher describes practical suggestions for making yards more useful to wildlife.

The Timber Press hardcover was published on 4 February 2020 and has 256 pages. It may suit readers who want the broader explanation before planning changes.

This is the original adult book. Check the full title when ordering, because the children’s version has a similar cover and name.

For families learning together

Nature’s Best Hope (Young Readers’ Edition): How You Can Save the World in Your Own Yard presents the ideas for younger readers.

Sarah L. Thomson adapted Tallamy’s book. The publisher describes simple explanations, everyday examples and black-and-white photographs.

Suggested actions include planting an oak tree or growing asters, flowering plants that provide pollen for bees. A family can use these examples to begin discussing what would work in their own space.

Check local growing conditions before choosing a plant. A species suitable for one part of the United States may not suit another.

Choose the book for the person who will use it, then build a plan around your local plants and animals.