Friday, November 30, 2012

The Great Giveaway

I've always wanted to have a giveaway, so why not include my friends at Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens and Beautiful Wildlife Garden.

Leave a comment ranking your choices in order of preference. I'll use a random number generator, and when I land on your comment, I'll go down the list and give you the first available prize (you can also just say "yo" and I'll randomly hand out a prize). I'll then hook you up with the author so they can send you the book.

You have until Saturday, December 8 at midnight central to enter. So, get to it! And please help me spread the word. Karma is a factor for the random number generator.

THE WINNERS

Pat Musick -- Urban and Suburban Meadows by Catherine Zimmerman
Gaia Gardener -- Energy-Wise Landscape Design by Sue Reed
Subversive Hippy -- Nature's Notes by Judy Burris
Jenny Brooks -- Florida Butterfly... offered by Suzanne Dingwell
Unknown (who are you?) -- Rocky Mountain Garden by Susan Tweit
Sunnyside Dru -- The Green Garden by Ellen Sousa
Diane S -- Sleep Creep Leap by moi (others were taken, so you win mine!)
Jchapstick -- Sleep Creep Leap by moi

Send me an email (bervogtATgmail.com) with mailing address so I can put you in touch with the authors!

#1


60 minute companion video
Catherine Zimmerman (like her at The Meadow Project)

The video brings into focus the amazing diversity of life inhabiting meadows and prairies and the beautiful imagery inspires meadow and prairie creation! The 60-minute video is formatted to be screened in one sitting or the viewer can click on individual chapters with meadow experts Michael Nadeau, Larry Weaner and Neil Diboll, who walk the viewer through meadow site preparation, design, planting and maintenance. In the chapter, Why Native Plants, entomologist, Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, explains the intricate connection between native plants, native insects and the soil food web.

The video and book address the problems caused by the extensive planting of pesticide-ridden, non-native grass lawns across America. While it is impractical to eliminate lawn, we cannot ignore the environmental consequences of such landscape planning as ecosystems are being destroyed and replaced with chemically maintained monocultures.

#2

Sue Reed (visit her here)

Residential consumption represents nearly one quarter of North America’s total energy use and the average homeowner spends thousands of dollars a year on power bills. To help alleviate this problem, Energy-Wise Landscape Design presents hundreds of practical ways everyone can save money, time, and effort while making their landscapes more environmentally healthy, ecologically rich, and energy efficient.

Intended for homeowners, gardeners, landscape professionals, and students, the design ideas in this book will work in every type of setting—large or small, hilly or flat, urban or rural. Written in non-scientific language with clear explanations and an easy conversational style, Energy-Wise Landscape Design is an essential resource for everyone who wants to shrink their energy footprint while enhancing their property and adding value to their home.

#3


Judy Burris and Wayne Richards (visit them here)

Regardless of age, we all enjoy the fun of discovering new insights to our natural world.
Nature's Notes delivers this joy using bite-sized learning text and dazzling close-up photos to unlock scores and scores of fascinating secrets. The fast-paced format features mini articles and sidebars interspersed with fun and affordable projects as well as backyard explorations revealing hidden natural treasures.

Nature's Notes unique spiral-binding and flexible jacket make this eye-popping book both sturdy and outdoor-friendly . Author/photographers Judy Burris and Wayne Richards have had their work featured in national and worldwide magazines, while their award-winning books, The Secret Lives of Backyard Bugs and The Life Cycles of Butterflies are national nature-category best sellers.

#4


Marc Minno, Jerry Butler, Donald Hall
offered by Suzanne Dingwell 

This book will become the classic guide to southern butterfly caterpillars and their host plants.
With hundreds of color photographs and concise information in a format that can easily be carried into the field, it offers an unprecedented tool for all butterfly gardeners, teachers, naturalists, students, and scientists in the southern United States.
No other book offers such a comprehensive discussion of Florida butterfly caterpillars and their host plants. It covers caterpillar anatomy, biology, ecology, habitat, behavior, and defense, as well as how to find, identify, and raise caterpillars. The book contains sharply detailed photos of 167 species of caterpillars, 185 plants, 18 life cycles, and 19 habitats. It includes 169 maps. Photos of the egg, larva, pupa, and adult of representatives of 18 butterfly families and subfamilies provide life cycle comparisons that have never been illustrated before in such an accessible reference.
#5
Susan Tweit (visit her here)

Rocky Mountain gardeners of all skill levels can now breath a sigh of relief. Keep gardens healthy and productive with the quick, expert advice provided in this easy-to-use pocket-size guide. Within these pages you will find the necessary resources and tools to adjust to the challenges of living in the rugged Rocky Mountains. Gardeners in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, will find down-to-earth tips on:
*Growing the right plants for your geographic area
*Working with soil
*Understanding unique weather challenges
*Getting rid of "invaders"—weeds and pests

#6


Ellen Sousa
This practical, comprehensive and inspirational guidebook for New Englanders looking for low-cost, beautiful and earth-friendly ways to green their landscapes and outdoor spaces and supply habitat for a variety of declining species, including birds, native pollinators, honey bees, amphibians and turtles.

Includes an extensive Plant Guide, detailing the best wildlife-friendly plants suitable for the varied conditions and microclimates across New England, cultivation hints and tips, and the wildlife attracted by each plant.

#7


Benjamin Vogt

Peeling off sheets of skin from a sunburned back. Spending $1,000 at five nurseries in an afternoon. Raising 200 monarch butterflies. Hearing the wing beats of geese thirty feet overhead at sunset. How one piece of mulch can make all the difference. These are the stories of Benjamin Vogt’s 1,500 foot native prairie garden over the course of three years. After a small patio garden at his last home teases him into avid tinkering, the blank canvas of his new marriage and quarter acre lot prove to be a rich place full of delight, anguish, and rapture in all four seasons.

Full of lyrical, humorous, and botanical short essays, Sleep, Creep, Leap will leave you inspired to sit a while with your plants, noticing how the smallest events become the largest—and how the garden brings us down to earth so that we can come home to our lives.


26 comments:

Sunnyside Dru said...

yo

Anonymous said...

My, a hard decision, so many I would love to read. Your book would be most entertaining. Urban and Suburban Meadows would be useful from a personal standpoint, and Energywise from a professional perspective. But Nature's Notes touches a special interest of mine.

Anonymous said...

Oh forgot, I will add you to my insect post today and my Fog and Frost post for tomorrow. Hope it helps, as I have a number of naturalists that read my site.

DianeS said...

#3 Nature's Notes! My kids would love this book!
#7 Sleep, Creep -Love the garden!
#2 Energy wise... Looks good!
I have books 1 and 6 and they are GREAT books!

Donna@Gardens Eye View said...

Alas I have so many of these already...for my area Nature Notes is the only one I do not have...great giveaway

ProfessorRoush said...

Well, Benjamin, you know I already have your fine text. I'm in for #3 this time!

Blue Dragon Arts said...

2, 7, 1. actually they all look wonderful!

infographic2 said...

yo!

Anonymous said...

wonderful choices!! #5, #3, #2

Gaia Gardener: said...

Fun! Hmmmm. I have several of these excellent books already, so I'd have to say #2, #4, and #3, in that order.

Trad2nz said...

Up north, here, so Susan's book makes the top of my list. #5,#1,#3 are my choices....

jchapstk said...

#7, 2, 1, 4, 3, 5, 6

based on my mid-Atlantic location, knowing the author a bit, personal interest. Great give away, BVogt.

Unknown said...

Energy Wise looks really interesting, but then again they all do! I can vouch for Green Garden - great book for us New Emglanders!

Pat Musick said...

Susan Tweit's work is always wonderful. Here in dry Colorado foothills, #5, #1, and #7 all sound like they'd help my native-grasses/wildflowers meadow-ish yard ~

suziq56 said...

I have not rrad any of these books but I am in Barnes and Noble as I post this sio I think I will go check them out.

suziq56 said...

I have not read any of these books but I am in Barnes and Noble as I post this so I think I will go check them out.

Jeanette said...

Urban and Suburban Meadows would be a first choice. Energywise and The Green Garden would be useful reads, too.

Native Gardener said...

Yo! I would love to read your book, Ben: Sleep, Creep & Leap, raising Monarchs! Also have a special place in my heart for the Meadow Project, having grown up in the prairies of the Midwest.. All great books!

Anonymous said...

I think #2, #7, and #3 in that order are all that really interest me. @SubvrsiveHippie

Manda said...

I like #2, #3, 1.


Thanks!!!!

Rob Thuener said...

They all look great! Tahnks for hosting the giveaway.

Modern Mia said...

I'd love the "Nature's Notes" for our homeschool. My kids love playing in the garden so that would be a perfect fit for our household.

Anonymous said...

YO! I can't possibly rank these. they're all beautiful and useful.
Thanks!
Jennie Brooks

Dawn said...

#7
#6
#1

They all look really good! Thanks for the chance!

TBTorra said...

What a beautiful collection of books! I'd be most interested in 7 or 1, but any of them look nice.

Benjamin Vogt said...

Congrats, winners! Send me an email (bervogtATgmail.com) with your mailing address so I can hook you up with the authors!

THE WINNERS
Pat Musick -- Urban and Suburban Meadows by Catherine Zimmerman
Gaia Gardener -- Energy-Wise Landscape Design by Sue Reed
Subversive Hippy -- Nature's Notes by Judy Burris
Jenny Brooks -- Florida Butterfly... offered by Suzanne Dingwell
Unknown (who are you?) -- Rocky Mountain Garden by Susan Tweit
Sunnyside Dru -- The Green Garden by Ellen Sousa
Diane S -- Sleep Creep Leap by moi (others were taken, so you win mine!)
Jchapstick -- Sleep Creep Leap by moi