Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design

Would like more on specific grasses, and a thumbnail tutorial on how that look could be achieved by referencing a picture displayed. Read it in a sitting because I enjoyed it so much. Thanks.

I wish this book existed 3 years ago when I started my journey towards creating a native meadow garden in my yard. After finishing it just today, I feel much more prepared for my next steps in improving my current meager attempt at natural gardening with native plants. I especially appreciate the instruction on where to learn about native plants in my specific location, how to design a successful garden, especially for the front yard, how to get the approval of the weed police, how to start the garden and even maintain it. He also ends the book with even more sources to explore that he uses in his own work. A goldmine of information. Buy it now.

This book was very, very helpful in terms of helping me sort out how to change part of our yard into a garden of native plants. I have other books that are much more exhaustive about the details of prairies and creating a prairie restoration, but this is what I needed to make a start on converting lawn to a garden of native plants. It is especially helpful because it explains how to use modules to make an urban garden more pleasing to the idea. I went to his YouTube videos in order to find some of the practical information I needed to make our garden a reality. For example, in one of his videos he mentions using a mixing drill (high torque, low RPM) and a 36" garden auger to make planting holes quickly. I also learned that he often plants the plugs first, then seeds the matrix. All this is very useful information for a do-it-yourself beginner. I am using the book to identify a reasonable number of plants to start with. All in all, this is a great book if you want to get started with native plants.

Love this book for beginning to get into native landscape design. As someone who is studying soil microbes and how to grow things in harmony with the soil food web, the use of glyphosate kills off the microbes—as evidenced by looking under the microscope. I expect more from Benjamin Vogt to find better ways than to rely on using chemicals. He could do better.

I've been looking for a good book about designing a prairie garden, and this is it. It will be informative to both beginners and to more experienced gardeners. I'm a pretty experienced gardener and still learned a lot. One thing that could improve this book, especially for beginners, would be a "plant glossary" that had a small picture of each plant with a brief description. I'm familiar with most of the plants in this book, but when I came across a couple that I didn't recognize, I had to search around the book to see what they looked like, and why they were useful.

Very preciseEasy to followPractical tipsGarden designs provided were very useful to me. Adopted two verbatim.Easy to read from beginning to end.

Perfect for those who want to do away with their lawn . Great for pollinator gardeners.

This is a deeply practical, useful, and inspiring book. One of the best garden books I’ve ever read.The author has packed this book with useful advice that will save our eco systems, give us beautiful gardens AND - get this - save homeowners time, headaches, and money.I couldn’t recommend this book more. It’s changed my mind and trained my eye to see my garden and my neighborhood in a different way.Buy this book! Read it, dog-ear it, read it again, and then get out there and get started.Ton of free and affordable information at the author’s site. He’s also very accessible through his Twitter handle.Buying this book isn’t just a great investment, it’s also a great deal.