Product Description

In a much-anticipated addition to the New Naturalist library, Stefan Buczacki takes a broad look at the relatively unexplored world of the garden, and its relevance within the context of natural history overall. Though gardens are often viewed merely as artificial creations rather than easily accessible places to observe and encourage wildlife, 'Garden Natural History' rectifies this misconception. By viewing gardens within the wider context of the British ecological landscape, Buczacki follows the garden's development as a habitat within which vertebrates, invertebrates and native and alien plants alike have been introduced and to which they have adapted. 'Garden Natural History' offers a fascinating insight into the diversity of organisms and ecological processes that constitute the garden, whilst also highlighting the role of the gardener as conservator and showing how the garden can inspire all naturalists.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #225376 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Review
'Original, informative and richly illustrated: a great book to while away an afternoon in the garden.' Guardian 'While covering topics such as the modern-day garden and the gardener's role, Buczacki is keen to highlight the educative role of gardens, and speculates on what could be in store for them in the forthcoming years. With a book as inspiring as this, that future is set to be bright green.' The Field

About the Author
Professor Stefan Buczacki is equally well known as the presenter of many hundreds of radio and television gardening programmes and as one of the country's most experienced non-fiction authors with well over fifty published titles on natural history, gardening and biography, many for HarperCollins. He is a graduate of the Universities of Southampton and Oxford and holds distinctions and awards from many scientific societies as well as honorary degrees from Liverpool John Moores and Derby Universities.

Customer Reviews

An opportunity missed
I have to agree with Bristly Badger that this book is disappointing & fails to live up to what one expects of a New Naturalist. Buczacki is a highly experienced writer & journalist with a talent for making mundane details readable: for instance, the properties of common garden weeds. However, this book reads as if it was written in a hurry as just one of many projects. Research is lightweight and often dated. The book is also too short: often just as it starts to get interesting the chapter closes, or obvious subjects are neglected or omitted entirely.

Buczacki had the chance to write a classic which would be read for years to come. Instead it has too much of the potboiler about it to have any lasting value.

Disappointing
In contrast to many magnificent New Naturalists, this is a disappointment. The problem, I think, is that it starts from the false premise that gardens are commonly viewed as artificial places which are not great for wildlife. This is nonsense. I can hardly think of a naturalist whose interest was not inspired in their garden as a child and every naturalist I know still revels in their garden's wildlife. There is some interesting stuff in here, but it is not interesting enough. Moreover, Buczacki's standard of research is now questionable, following the publication of his appalling Fauna Britannica in 2002 - it's most recent reference to badgers, for example, was from 1983. This suggested that Buczacki had cobbled it together from whatever was on his bookshelf at time, no matter how out of date it was, and had failed to do much in the way of original research.

Anticipated disappointment
I am an amateur gardener without the scientific knowledge of the previous reviewers with whom I agree on the failure of the writer to live up to the high standard set by all those who have written for this series. Having seen his earlier appearances on TV gardening programmes I was somewhat forewarned and, true to form, his arrogance shines through. His prediction in his introduction that the book may be perceived as judgemental, dogmatic and opinionated is fully borne out.
Let's hope the book appreciates in value as its only other purpose is to fill a gap between No 101 and No 103.