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Rating: 
Summary: Gardening for the Nature Lover
Review: A garden without life is like a day without sunshine! Gardeners both of the city and the countryside yearn to get back to nature and to experience the sights and sounds of wildlife. What happiness can compare to watching feisty hummingbirds zoom from flower to flower, jaunty chickadees snatch seeds from a feeder, and dazzling butterflies tilt lazily through the air? The expansive, well-manicured lawns so prevalent in our culture provide little of what these beautiful and beneficial creatures need. Texas Wildscapes gives the low-down on how to design and install gardens that provide the food, water, and shelter required by native wildlife. It also provides extensive lists and information on native plants, birds (with a special section on hummingbirds), butterflies, amphibians and reptiles, and mammals. There are step-by-step instructions on building a backyard pond and designing a wildlife garden; and "special needs" areas, like shady gardens, deer-prone sites, and wet zones are addressed. Finally, we include special instructions for gardening for specific groups of species, like songbirds, hummingbirds, and butterflies, and highlight some of the species you might attract in a habitat garden. Texas Wildscapes is artfully produced and full of beautiful photographs of landscapes, native plants, and animals. I know it will become a staple of your gardening library.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book for creating your own wildlife habitat
Review: A wildscape teaches you and your family about the symbiosis of life. It's like creating a miniature world in your own yard, and it's amazing how much wildlife you can attract and enjoy. This book is full of color pictures, two of which are of my own wildscape. It describes how to provide the three basic requirements of food, cover and water. It has 239 pages of tables that tell about various wildlife species including birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and the key ingredient, wildflowers and native plants. The book describes ten ecological regions in Texas, and the tables indicate the kinds of wildlife you can expect in each region. Creating a wildscape is much easier than it appears. By using native plants, you avoid many of the problems and work of traditional gardening. I enjoy my own wildscape immensely, and I highly recommend this book and creating a one of your own.
Rating: 
Summary: The basics are here but navigating the tables is strenuous.
Review: The chapters are well written,although most could have been a little more comprehensive. I was doing fine until I got to the Appendix. It's easy to get lost here. The tables themselves are comprehensive, but not easy to navigate if you don't know your family names, or if you don't know the name of the item (i.e.plant/bird etc.) you're looking for. No index at all. At least it does have a glossary but for the life of me, why do all the authors assume that everyone knows how to pronounce some of the not so ordinary.
Rating:
Summary: The basics are here but navigating the tables is strenuous.
Review: The chapters are well written,although most could have been a little more comprehensive. I was doing fine until I got to the Appendix. It's easy to get lost here. The tables themselves are comprehensive, but not easy to navigate if you don't know your family names, or if you don't know the name of the item (i.e.plant/bird etc.) you're looking for. No index at all. At least it does have a glossary but for the life of me, why do all the authors assume that everyone knows how to pronounce some of the not so ordinary.
Rating: 
Summary: A good reference volume
Review: This book starts out telling you how to create a "Wildscape" in Texas. It proceeds to divide the state into 10 "ecoregions" (with and extremely detailed map by county...necessary in Texas!) There is a chapter on Basics of Wildlife Habitat and one on Designing your Wildscape. Then it gets to the good stuff...Part two is divided into categories of wildlife: birds; hummingbirds specifically; mammals, reptiles and amphibians; and insects and spiders. They cover common to Texas members of each group. Part three is "troubleshooting". Unwanted pests, gardening troublespots and warnings about invasive exotics are included here. Part four is more than half of the book and it's the appendix. There are detailed charts on all bird, hummingbird, mammal, reptile & amphibian, and native plants available in Texas, including description, habitat, region, etc. The strength of this book is the huge amount of information provided. If you are looking to attract a certain type of bird, there's a chart to tell you dimensions for a nest box for it and it's habitat and mounting instructions. Hummingbirds? A chart for favored plants, detailing regions plant can be found in. Butterflies? A chart for common species and their larval and nectar source plants. The weaknesses are indexing and photographs. There is no index, so be prepared to search through charts for specific information. There are few photographs, mainly concentrating on wildlife and plants to avoid. Nevertheless, with a good plant guide or knowledge of local plants, this book really hits the spot if you are trying to attract wildlife!
Rating:
Summary: A good reference volume
Review: This book starts out telling you how to create a "Wildscape" in Texas. It proceeds to divide the state into 10 "ecoregions" (with and extremely detailed map by county...necessary in Texas!) There is a chapter on Basics of Wildlife Habitat and one on Designing your Wildscape. Then it gets to the good stuff... Part two is divided into categories of wildlife: birds; hummingbirds specifically; mammals, reptiles and amphibians; and insects and spiders. They cover common to Texas members of each group. Part three is "troubleshooting". Unwanted pests, gardening troublespots and warnings about invasive exotics are included here. Part four is more than half of the book and it's the appendix. There are detailed charts on all bird, hummingbird, mammal, reptile & amphibian, and native plants available in Texas, including description, habitat, region, etc. The strength of this book is the huge amount of information provided. If you are looking to attract a certain type of bird, there's a chart to tell you dimensions for a nest box for it and it's habitat and mounting instructions. Hummingbirds? A chart for favored plants, detailing regions plant can be found in. Butterflies? A chart for common species and their larval and nectar source plants. The weaknesses are indexing and photographs. There is no index, so be prepared to search through charts for specific information. There are few photographs, mainly concentrating on wildlife and plants to avoid. Nevertheless, with a good plant guide or knowledge of local plants, this book really hits the spot if you are trying to attract wildlife!
Rating: 
Summary: Impossible to Use.
Review: This books lists Texas wildlife. If you don't know the order and family in which your plant or animal is taxonomically placed, you will not find your it in this book. There is no index at all so, except for an accomplished scientist who already knows all the scientific names, this book is absolutley no help.
Rating:
Summary: Impossible to Use.
Review: This books lists Texas wildlife. If you don't know the order and family in which your plant or animal is taxonomically placed, you will not find your it in this book. There is no index at all so, except for an accomplished scientist who already knows all the scientific names, this book is absolutley no help.
Rating:
Summary: There's lots of good information in this book, but....
Review: This is one of three or four books that I bought to use to build up my Texas gardening knowledge and help me creat a wildscape in my garden. The book is loaded with great information, and would be very useful in helping me learn and plan, except for one small detail. THERE IS NO INDEX! Nothing. Every other plant and bird book I have has an index, this is a very basic thing to include in this type of book. There is a fantastic ~175 page table on native Texas plants. Is there an index to it? No. Are they arranged in some type of alphabetic order? No. They are arranged somewhat by type, ie. tree-shrub-flower, but nowhere does it even say how it is organized. If you want information on Blue Mistflower, Eupatorium coelestinum, you have to go through this huge table page by page looking for it. You have to do this every time you want information on any plant. Do you think you missed the plant you were looking for? You have to go back through it again more carefully. It may not even be there, but you don't know until you search through it. The lack of an index makes this great book, with loads of useful information, virtually useless as a reference. I have other books that I use as plant references, unfortunately they don't have some of the info contained in this book. I still use this book, but it would be SO much better with an index in it, and with an index it would probably be my primary reference and I would give it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: There's lots of good information in this book, but....
Review: This is one of three or four books that I bought to use to build up my Texas gardening knowledge and help me creat a wildscape in my garden. The book is loaded with great information, and would be very useful in helping me learn and plan, except for one small detail. THERE IS NO INDEX! Nothing. Every other plant and bird book I have has an index, this is a very basic thing to include in this type of book. There is a fantastic ~175 page table on native Texas plants. Is there an index to it? No. Are they arranged in some type of alphabetic order? No. They are arranged somewhat by type, ie. tree-shrub-flower, but nowhere does it even say how it is organized. If you want information on Blue Mistflower, Eupatorium coelestinum, you have to go through this huge table page by page looking for it. You have to do this every time you want information on any plant. Do you think you missed the plant you were looking for? You have to go back through it again more carefully. It may not even be there, but you don't know until you search through it. The lack of an index makes this great book, with loads of useful information, virtually useless as a reference. I have other books that I use as plant references, unfortunately they don't have some of the info contained in this book. I still use this book, but it would be SO much better with an index in it, and with an index it would probably be my primary reference and I would give it 5 stars.
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