the garden as habitat, with doug tallamy

THINK 3-D, SAYS DOUG TALLAMY, co-author of “The Living Landscape,” and in fact, maybe think 4-D, since by designing your landscape in all three dimensions, layering plants into complex communities, you’ll add the “D” of diversity, too.

Entomologist Doug Tallamy and his wife have spent 14 years coaxing back to life 10 acres of what had been farmland for nearly four centuries: achieving more diversity by adding layers to its once-flat botanical architecture. Today 54 species of birds nest on their Delaware property, and acorns the couple planted have become 20-foot trees–so many that now editing is required.

Tallamy, professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware-Newark, has been called the “guru of the habitat gardening movement.” He is co-author with Rick Darke of a recent book, “The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden,” and he joined me on the radio to talk about just that. Enter to win a copy, but first get a primer on building “the specialized relationships that are nature,” as Tallamy calls them, like these:

Think, as he does, about having something blooming every week from earliest spring through latest fall so pollinators have a steady diet; about creating more dynamic edge or ecotone in your garden (and reducing your contribution to America’s 45.6 million acres of un-diverse lawn); about making more insects happy because insects make the world go round.

Making a garden is not merely outdoor decorating, is it?, I asked, as we began our chat.

“Plants do so many things, and if we only look at what they look like—if we only look at their decorative value—then we’re ignoring all those wonderful things they do, and we actually pay a heavy

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