About this item
For every gardener who cares about the planet, this guide to designing a bee garden helps you create a stunningly colorful, vibrant, healthy habitat that attracts both honeybees and native bees.In The Bee-Friendly Garden, award-winning garden designer Kate Frey and bee expert Gretchen LeBuhn provide everything you need to know to create a dazzling garden that helps both the threatened honeybee and our own native bees. No matter how small or large your space, and regardless of whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, just a few simple changes to your garden can fight the effects of colony collapse disorder and the worldwide decline in bee population that threatens our global food chain. There are many personal benefits of having a bee garden as well! Bee gardens: contain a gorgeous variety of flowers bloom continuously throughout the seasons are organic, pesticide-free, and ecologically sustainable develop healthy and fertile soil attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects increase the quantity of your fruit and vegetable harvest improve the quality, flavor, and size of your produceIllustrated with spectacular full-color photos, The Bee-Friendly Garden debunks myths about bees, explains seasonal flower progression, and provides detailed instructions for nest boxes and water features. From "super blooming" flowers to regional plant lists and plants to avoid, The Bee-Friendly Garden is an essential tool for every gardener who cares about the planet and wants to make their yard a welcoming habitat for nature's most productive pollinator.
About the Author
Kate grew up in Berkeley, California. Her father was a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley and he instilled a love of reading and literature. She began her career of working with plants and interest in nature as a seasonal employee with the California State Forestry, Federal Forest Service and California State Park system, where she worked fighting fires, on timber crews and on trails. At Fetzer Vineyards in Hopland, Calif., where Kate worked for 20 years beginning in 1986, she managed and designed the six-acre, world famous organic gardens, as well as extensive sustainable landscaping around the facilities and the biodynamic Bonterra Ranch.In May 2003 her garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in London won a silver/gilt medal, and in 2005 and 2007 her gardens illustrating many elements of biodiversity and sustainability, won gold medals and were visited by the Queen. In 2009 she competed in the World Garden Competition in Hamamatsu, Japan and in 2011 participated in the Floria garden show in Putrajaya, Malaysia. She consulted for two years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on a Prince's organic farm. She currently works as a consultant, designer and a freelance writer, specializing in sustainable gardens and farms that encourage biodiversity. From 2008-2013 Kate directed the Sonoma State University Sustainable Landscape Program. Kate earned a B.A. Summa Cum Laude with Distinction in English at Sonoma State University in 2006. Her book on bee-friendly gardening, co-written with Professor Gretchen LeBuhn, was published in 2016 by Ten Speed Press. She is a frequent speaker and instructor for garden clubs, horticultural groups and The University Extension Master Gardeners Programs. Her website is: freygardens.com
