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December 17, 2022

100 Plants to Feed the Birds by Laura Erickson ~ a Nonfiction Review

by Donna Huber


I've read several books from Storey Publishing and have always found them to be informative. As I'm in the process of converting my front yard from grass (okay mostly weeds) to gardens I thought this would be a useful book to get ideas from. 

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

cover of gardening book 100 Plants to Feed the Birds by Laura Erickson
December 2022; Storey Publishing; 978-1635864380
ebook, print (256 pages); gardening

Since the tagline of the title is Turn Your Home Garden into a Healthy Bird Habitat, I thought the information would be applicable to most normal size yards. Yet the book started off with trees, some that I wouldn't think would be suitable for the typical yard. Even the author points out that a few of the trees would need to be in a larger area. The Praire section was only slightly better but still seemed more geared to large tracts and not what I would necessarily consider a home garden.

The later chapters got into fruit-bearing plants and other herbaceous plants and were more useful for me. It just seemed that I had to go through a lot of pages of plants either not suitable for my yard or regional location.

I think I would have preferred the book to have been divided by regional growing areas, even arranging the plants within the chapters by locale would have been helpful. That way I could easily flip to the sections that had plants that grew in my area instead of getting all excited about a plant and then finding out at the end that it doesn't grow here.

You might think that a book with 100 plants would be a really big book, but the information provided is pretty brief. You could find similar information on the Internet. And in fact, the author often recommends checking with your local nursery or master gardeners for more information about species specifically for your area. However, if you prefer to leaf through a book as a starting point and then do more research on your own, then this book is great for that.

Out of all the books I've read from Storey Publishing, I felt this one was the least informative. It is filled with pictures of birds and plants so it felt more like a coffee table book than a resource guide.

The holidays are upon us, and if you are still looking for a gift for the birdwatcher or gardener on your list this would be a good book to add to their collection. 



Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.


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