Catherine J. Johnson (1) (1958–)

This week I’ve been reading Welcoming Wildlife to the Garden and I can’t wait for warm weather so I can try some of their suggestions on my balcony! The first thing I noticed about this book was that it had a lot more in common with A Spring Without Bees than I expected, even knowing they’re neighbors in the dewey decimal system, because this book was incredibly eco-friendly. The authors counsel against using pesticides, suggest Integrated Pest management (using natural predators to get rid of unwanted bugs, as suggested in A Spring Without Bees), and clearly love all animals – even the creepy crawly ones. Personally, I’ve always loved all animals and even think flies are cute when they wash their faces with their legs, kind of the way cats do. So finding a book which seemed to see the best in all animals was like finding a kindred spirit. They even explain how to attract snakes and spiders, which I think a lot of people really wouldn’t go for. I was ready to draw the line when they started talking about Crocodilians, but fortunately the authors didn’t suggest attracting crocodiles and alligators to your yard! Instead they observed that if these animals visit your backyard “that may be wildlife enough”, which made me laugh :)

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