PEREN N I AL FOCUS
BOBBIE SCHWARTZ, FAPLD Bobbie’s Green Thumb
Photo courtesy of BrightView Landscape Services.
THE HOLIDAY BOOKSHELF 2020 EDITION
Winter and the holidays are coming all too quickly. If you are looking for books to give as holiday gifts, I have some suggestions for you.
NATURE’S BEST HOPE: A NEW APPROACH TO CONSERVATION THAT STARTS IN YOUR YARD Tallamy, Douglas W., Timber Press, 2019 Portland, Oregon
Those of us in the green industry are more aware than the average homeowner of the environmental threat posed by climate change. I’ve recently read frightening statistics that demonstrate that we are losing species of flora and fauna at an alarming rate due to climate change.
8 | Official Publication of The Ohio Landscape Association
While various government entities are slow to move, Doug Tallamy posits that we, as individuals, can turn our yards into conservation corridors that will provide habitats for wildlife. Most habitat now is too fragmented to sustain one species, much less biodiverse species. “Creating biological corridors will enlarge the populations of plants and animals within protected habitat, enabling them to weather normal population fluctuations indefinitely.” Tallamy tells us that conservation approaches of the twentieth century, i.e. preserves and national parks, are not nearly enough to save biodiversity. Conservation has to be everyone’s responsibility. We need to redesign public and private landscapes that convert at least half of the area now in lawn to attractive landscapes that are packed with plants and contribute to local continued on page 10 ecosystems instead of destroying them.
