The Bee-Friendly Garden - by Kate Frey & Gretchen Lebuhn (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For every gardener who cares about the planet, this guide to designing a bee garden helps you create a stunningly colorful, vibrant, healthy habitat that attracts both honeybees and native bees.

In The Bee-Friendly Garden, award-winning garden designer Kate Frey and bee expert Gretchen LeBuhn provide everything you need to know to create a dazzling garden that helps both the threatened honeybee and our own native bees. No matter how small or large your space, and regardless of whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, just a few simple changes to your garden can fight the effects of colony collapse disorder and the worldwide decline in bee population that threatens our global food chain. There are many personal benefits of having a bee garden as well! Bee gardens:

- contain a gorgeous variety of flowers
- bloom continuously throughout the seasons
- are organic, pesticide-free, and ecologically sustainable
- develop healthy and fertile soil
- attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects
- increase the quantity of your fruit and vegetable harvest
- improve the quality, flavor, and size of your produce

Illustrated with spectacular full-color photos, The Bee-Friendly Garden debunks myths about bees, explains seasonal flower progression, and provides detailed instructions for nest boxes and water features. From "super blooming" flowers to regional plant lists and plants to avoid, The Bee-Friendly Garden is an essential tool for every gardener who cares about the planet and wants to make their yard a welcoming habitat for nature's most productive pollinator.

Review Quotes

Winner of the American Horticultural Society 2017 Book Award

"Even in drought, plant for bees; nectar-rich blooms help these important pollinators survive dry times. Learn how to attract bees (that don't chase humans) and increase your vegetable garden yields in the new book The Bee-Friendly Garden."
--Sunset magazine

"Award-winning garden designers Frey and LeBuhn team up in this accessible book to offer gardeners solid advice on how to attract and encourage more bees."
--Library Journal

"Worried about reports of massive bee die-offs and what the consequences will be to global food production? Look to The Bee-Friendly Garden for what you can do to help support your local bee populations."
--Sierra magazine

"Most people don't understand the need to plant for pollinators to achieve productive vegetable gardens, or that pollination and beauty go together. This book underlines the importance and possibilities of flower-filled gardens that address our needs and create lovely and productive spaces around our homes."
--Rosalind Creasy, author of Edible Landscaping

"What a delightful, necessary book! The authors deliver its important mission--encouraging bee gardening--simply, graciously, and thoroughly. Find inspiration here, and the tools to reconnect the land you steward with the web of life. Bee happy!"
--Lauren Springer Ogden, garden designer, author of The Undaunted Garden, and coauthor of Plant-Driven Design and Waterwise Plants for Sustainable Gardens

"This book will make bees happy and healthy in gardens across the country."
--Laurie Davies Adams, executive director of Pollinator Partnership

"Filled with 'practical information that any gardener can use, this book does an excellent job of focusing on a specific, sufficiently narrow subject, ' notes Brian Thompson, especially one that has increasing significance to pollinator health. Mary Ann Newcomer appreciates the 'wide range of plant recommendations by region, making it a useful resource anywhere in North America.' From its in-depth, insightful discussions to its 'layout and photography, it's a well done book all the way through, ' says Doug Oster."
--The American Horticultural Society 2017 Book Awards Committee

About the Author

KATE FREY is an international garden designer and consultant specializing in sustainable, insect-hospitable landscaping and small farms. She won two gold medals at the Chelsea Garden Show in London for ecologically themed gardens and is a popular speaker at garden shows and clubs. She has written for Gardens Illustrated and Pacific Horticulture magazines, and lives in Hopland, CA. Learn more at freygardens.com.

GRETCHEN LEBUHN is a professor of biology at San Francisco State University and the author/editor of two books on pollinators, Field Guide to the Common Bees of California and Attracting Native Pollinators. She is the founder and director of The Great Sunflower Project (www.greatsunflower.org), a national citizen science program designed to gather information about bee diversity and activity.