Integrated Landscaping: Following Nature’s Lead in New Hampshire
“Integrated Landscaping: Following Nature's Lead”, a collaboration among four New Hampshire women, promises “a new way of thinking about shaping home grounds and public spaces in the Northeas United Statest.” And, according to a book review by Rebecca Rule, it delivers. In her article, Rebecca Rule observes that:
- “With rural New Hampshire fast disappearing, it seems the only way to preserve our nature – that is, our identity as a place where people and wild things can share the land – is to integrate living spaces with landscape.”
- “Lauren Chase-Rowell and Katherine Hartnett, who are design experts, along with Mary Tebo, a forestry educator, and Mary Wyzga, a wildlife educator, offer many ideas, both practical and visionary, for keeping New Hampshire New Hampshire. They envision a more populated state that's still naturally beautiful.”
- “Generously illustrated and clearly written, i.e., jargon free, “Integrated Landscaping” offers practical suggestions, from landscape diagrams to lists of wildlife-friendly plants, for living with and in nature.”
Integrated landscapes “mimic combinations found in nature.” Instead of individual plantings, homeowners or caretakers of public lands would do well to think of the whole system of plantings, how the plants fit and work together.
Looking to Nature for Guidance
New Hampshire's rapid development over the past four decades has replaced 
natural plant and animal communities with landscapes that often appear as an afterthought, replicating the same few plants over and over again,” says Mary Tebo, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension's community forestry educator.
“But what if we looked to New Hampshire's natural ecosystems for guidance? By following nature's lead we can create landscapes and gardens that not only add beauty and increase property value, but that also protect soils, promote species diversity, reduce pollution, minimize energy and labor costs, recycle wastes, support the local economy, and look and feel as if they belong in New Hampshire.
“That's the approach we take in our new book, Integrated Landscaping: Following Nature's Lead,” says Tebo.
More about the book:
“Integrated Landscaping: Following Nature's Lead” by Lauren Chase-Rowell, Katherine Hartnett, Mary Tebo and Marilyn Wyzga; University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension and New Hampshire Fish and Game Department; paper; 162 pages; $20. Peek inside.
A book anybody can use: homeowners, professional landscapers, municipal planners and community developers
The book review by Rebecca Rule was originally published in the August 3, 2008 issue of the Nashua Telegraph newspaper. rebeccarule@metrocast.net.
Posted August 2008