By The Xerces Society (E. Mader, M. Shepherd, M. Vaughan, S.H. Black and G. LeBuhn)

• Publisher: Storey Publishing, 2011
• Paperback‏:‎ 384 pages
• ISBN-10: 1603426957
• Dimensions: 7” X 10”
• Price: $30.37 (Amazon.ca – currently a 20% discount); $16.49 (Amazon.com – currently a 45% discount)

Consider me suitably impressed. I received this book as a Christmas present last year, glanced through it and thought it looked interesting, but then shelved it till I had time to read it. Ten months later I pulled it off the shelf – not because I was that keen to read it, but because I wanted to do this book review and this seemed as good a book as any to review. Well, was I surprised. This is not only a good read, but it is chock full of fantastic information and loads of great photographs.

The book is divided into four sections: Pollinators and Pollination; Taking Action; Bees of North America; and Creating Pollinator Friendly Landscapes. I will hit what I think are the highlights (and a couple of drawbacks) of the book.

Part 1 – Pollinators and Pollination

This 85 page section covers the science of how pollination works, and covers a host of pollinators – from bees to flies to moths and butterflies to beetles. It discusses how each group goes about their business and provides lots of examples (with great photos) of the various insects. It wraps up the section discussing the various threats to these pollinators – from habitat destruction to climate change – and the implications of this.

Part 2 – Taking Action

This is a long (128 page) section that covers A LOT of territory. It starts off discussing strategies we can use to help pollinators (hint – a high diversity of pollen producing plants!) and then goes into managing your pollinator habitat. On page 95, there’s an inset that lists key things to consider when providing foraging habitat: start small; provide a succession of blooms; grow a variety of pollen and nectar rich species; native plants are better; and, if possible, don’t use pesticides.

Following this is a section discussing habitat design, including nesting and egg laying sites and how to build a nest block for native bees.

There is also a section on community (and school) gardens including regional (US and southern Canada) native plant lists. (They also include a list of some non-natives that they recommend.)

Part 2 wraps up with a very lengthy discussion on bee-friendly farm management, golf courses and urban green spaces, natural areas and even a bit about green roofs.

Part 3 – Bees of North America

Part 3 has an introduction to the science and study of bees, including bee anatomy, bees vs flower flies, etc. then goes into detail on 32 genera of native bees plus the honeybee. Each bee gets a full page description that covers identification, similar insects, foraging, nests and conservation concerns. There is a photo of the bee plus a silhouette of the bee showing its actual size and a paragraph entitled “Did You Know?” that covers something interesting about the species.

Yet despite all this great info, this is the one part of the book that I have the biggest complaint about. With 4,000 species of bees in North America, this is just a very small sampling at the genus level (not the species level) so beyond being interesting reading, it’s not very helpful in the garden when I’m trying to figure out which bee I’m looking at. A much better book for this, in my opinion, is Common Bees of Eastern North America by O.M Carril and J.S. Wilson (Princeton University Press, 2021) – there’s also a version for Western North America.

Part 4 – Creating a Pollinator-Friendly Landscape

This section starts with a few pages of generic garden design samples but then provides yet a third group of “regional plant lists” with a different selection of species than the last two. It’s as if the different sections were written by individual authors, then brought together with little thought about combining these tables into a master table in the appendix (probably could have saved a few pages in the printing). This set of lists, again, ALSO includes a list of non-natives deemed suitable.

The book then has a section listing details (including a photo) for a number of the plants highlighting light, moisture, bloom time, flower colour, height, region(s) and then a very short paragraph about the plant. These are listed in alphabetic order by common name (problematic if your part of the country calls a plant by a different common name than mine!).

Of the 38 plants listed, only 26 are native to the Great Lakes region where I live. There are also 27 species of trees and shrubs, of which only 12 are native here. And there are a number of non-natives listed, too.

The final section of Part 4 lists the host plants for a number of butterflies with a sampling of photos for some of the butterfly species.

Summary

All in all, I think this book would be a great addition to any native-plant-gardener’s library. I now wish I had started reading it last winter when I first got it as it is chock full of really interesting information.

Happy native plant growing.