The Northeast Native Plant Primer: 235 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden

This book is very informative and authoritative. I like that it has separate chapters for trees, shrubs, perennials, ferns, annuals, sedges and grasses, etc. The author is an expert on the topic. I liked it so much that I ordered one for my friend. I gave it to her well before her birthday because I knew that as soon as she saw it at The Garden in the Woods, Framingham, MA, she would buy it. Excellent book for New England native plant gardeners. I would have liked a larger chapter on sedges but excellent book nonetheless.

I read this cover-to-cover. I took a bunch of notes and I now have a list of native plants that I'm planning to bring to my gardens. It was very well researched and the plant descriptions are great. The introduction is pretty brief, but it makes a strong case for "why native plants". I would have loved to see a few more photos of the various parts of the plants for many of the plants, but I understand it might have been space-limited.

The information in the book was presented in an easy to read and use format. As I learn more about the importance of native plants, this has been an extremely useful source of information in helping me make better plant selections for my garden.

This is a good book for someone who lives in New England and wants to know what plants are apt to be successfully grown in their garden. It provides a useful overview of some important considerations (species vs. cultivar and eco zone vs. hardiness zone). It is not a book that will identify the rare orchid that you find in a secluded bog.

I wanted to add more native plants to the habitat I have created in my small urban yard in the Northeast. This is a great resource if you want to attract pollinators of all kinds. Clear, concise and informative.

The author is clearly an expert but I found this volume less helpful than I had hoped. Some parts of the text were written for those with absolutely no knowledge of gardening while other sections were dense with advanced information. And while the pictures were good quality, too many, whether of trees or shrubs or even wildflowers, we’re close-ups of blossoms. It’s hard to envision a particular tree or shrub or how it might look in a particular setting when your only visual info is a tight photo of a blossom. The suggestions as to actually purchasing and planting were very general, not of much use. As someone who believes in improving our environment by using native plants that also support native birds, insects, etc., I was disappointed. The topic is worthy of a top notch guide; unfortunately I don’t think this is the best available.