Attracting Garden Pollinators by Jean Vernon

 

Attracting Garden Pollinators is a well written guide to understanding local pollinators and planning an appropriate garden environment to attract and support them. Due out 6th June 2022 from Pen & Sword on their White Owl imprint, it's 176 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

The introduction covers the basics of pollinator entomology and concepts: what are beneficial insects, how they work and why they're important. The intro is followed by a "bestiary" with some of the most common groups of pollinators (butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, hoverflies, flies, and beetles). The rest of the book covers habitats, attractor plants, and thuggish plants like bindweed and Japanese knotweed (and some techniques for controlling them).

The book is lavishly illustrated with clear color photos throughout. The photos show featured insects in various life stages including pupal and adult which make identification easier. Tips and extra info is included in highlighted text boxes throughout. Photo captions are well written and easy to understand. The chapter on useful plants for native pollinators and parasitoids has been written with a good eye toward garden design and diversity. There are a lot of plants which are beautiful and useful and which people will want to plant in their gardens (instead of hiding the weedy looking ones).

There's an abbreviated resource and links list in the back of the book which is mostly slanted toward readers in the UK but will also provide relevant info for readers living in other parts of the world. The book also includes a cross referenced index.

No single book is going to be the holy grail of gardening information; this one does a good job of deep diving into an important (and often overlooked) aspect of natural controls and organic methods which happily co-align with much needed biodiversity support and regenerative gardening.

Five stars. This would make a good selection for public or school library acquisition, makers groups, gardening and activity groups, home and community gardeners, smallholders, and the like. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.