A Sunday Times Bestseller & Times Summer Reads of 2019
"Packed with remarkable details... An excellent guide to green gardening." —Guardian
"An eye-opening book and Goulson's enthusiasm is infectious. This is a man you'd just love to visit your garden and show you its invisible wonders." —The Times
"Exquisite... should be read by every gardener in the country." —Observer
The Garden Jungle is about the wildlife that lives right
under our noses, in our gardens and parks, between the gaps in the
pavement, and in the soil beneath our feet. Wherever you are right now,
the chances are that there are worms, woodlice, centipedes, flies,
silverfish, wasps, beetles, mice, shrews and much, much more, quietly
living within just a few paces of you.
Dave Goulson gives us an
insight into the fascinating and sometimes weird lives of these
creatures, taking us burrowing into the compost heap, digging under the
lawn and diving into the garden pond. He explains how our lives and
ultimately the fate of humankind are inextricably intertwined with that
of earwigs, bees, lacewings and hoverflies, unappreciated heroes of the
natural world.
The Garden Jungle is at times an
immensely serious book, exploring the environmental harm inadvertently
done by gardeners who buy intensively reared plants in disposable
plastic pots, sprayed with pesticides and grown in peat cut from the
ground. Goulson argues that gardens could become places where we can
reconnect with nature and rediscover where food comes from. With just a
few small changes, our gardens could become a vast network of tiny
nature reserves, where humans and wildlife can thrive together in
harmony rather than conflict.
For anyone who has a garden, and cares about our planet, this book is essential reading.
