The biggest enemy of any garden is not a pest, disease, or poison—it’s any plant with tougher survival skills than the plants it competes with. The best way to weed out the invaders is with this fiendishly clever guide to native plants that can seek and destroy the top 100 most unwelcome perennials, grasses, vines, shrubs, and trees. While replacing the invaders, the beautiful, hardy native plants described here also attract native birds and butterflies, while turning away their own enemy invaders. Word-and-picture guides provide tips on care and maintenance, while helpful “at a glance” boxes depict shapes, sizes, best locations, and most attractive features of each native alternative.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 4 reviews)

Why would anyone need a pocket sized book on this topic?

This book is a mystery to me. It has a list of invasive, what states they're invasive in, and goes as far to recommend replacements. What I don't understand is why it's a pocket sized book (about that of a novel).

Am I expected to carry it around the woods or a garden store with me?
No, the pictures of invasive plants are far to small to ID anything with. The garden store is usually good enough to have things labeled but rarely do you find one good enough to carry some of the native plants this book recommends. I have never seen a ButtonBush sold anywhere but online, and actually it's hard enough just to find Milkweed. Though there seems to be a trend growing where more native plants are showing up in garden stores. I busted out laughing when I saw one selling Goldenrod. Native trees and wildflowers you'll have better luck finding at the nursery.

These books never seem to have the balls to out right say These plants should be banned from sale! Purple loosestrife is an invasive plant in most of the US but it's not banned from sale at garden nurseries in a lot of the states. This undermines the millions of dollars put towards conservationist work.

I suppose it's good to have a book on this topic but this is more like a reference and nothing more. It doesn't tell you why they're invasive or what damage they can do.
September 06, 2008

pretty good little book

This little book is pretty good. The information is up to date and accurate. The suggestions are useful. I would recommend it to anyone.
July 07, 2008

One to buy

I typically take books like this out of the local library when I need them, but I've bought this one, because of a combination of factors: low price, great readability, good pictures, good comprehensive overview of the plants. It is not really useful to me in quite the way the authors might have intended, that is, "Don't buy plant X, buy plants Y or Z or W instead..." One's likes/dislikes for plants can be so finessed, that I don't think anyone else could choose substitutes like that for what I might like.

Rather, I just use it to read about the native plants (which is 98% of the book anyway -- it gives very little or no description of the "bad invasive" plants, doesn't explain why or how they're invasive... you must take on faith that those plants are bad.) The book is primarily an inexpensive, well-written description of native plants you should like to use, rather than describing invasives. Very, very good descriptions of the plants, from authors who not only know the plants well, but can pick out the very specific things about each plant that a gardener will like to know when cultivating them. E.g. "can't tolerate extreme heat" or "goes dormant if no moisture" or "has a long taproot so once established shouldn't be moved" -- these are the specifics about plants you've really got to know, and this book seems to tell me much more of those details than others like it.

It's another of many great books from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Incidently, it's not just for east coasters... seems to cover the entire country and all zones fairly well.
July 17, 2007

Great Book

This book is kind of like two books in one - it provides the Federal List of Invasive Garden Plants by plant name and state, then takes some of those plants and gives good native alternatives for them.

The natives are good selections and come with photos, descriptions and growing tips. Usually several native options are offered for each invasive.

Aside from being a good resource for identifying invasive plants, it's great to have an easy way to find better plant options.

This book is a bargain at $9.95, even if Amazon isn't discounting the price. And it's a nice way to help support the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
October 31, 2006

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