This new edition, which is being reissued in a more artistic format and with many additional illustrations, updates the original text and adds a chapter showing what progress has been made in the ecological management of landscapes over the past decade."--BOOK JACKET.

The site of political demonstrations, sporting events, and barbecues, and the object of loving, if not obsessive, care and attention, the lawn is also symbolically tied to our notions of community and civic responsibility, serving in the process as one of the foundations of democracy.

The Complete Guide for Creating a Beautiful, Eco-friendly, Water-Wise, Low Maintenance Front Yard With increased drought conditions and water restrictions, many homeowners are choosing to let their lawns die, but do not know what to do next. People are seeking green and "green" alternatives that are attractive, affordable and easy to maintain. This book is designed to provide the reader with a recipe for designing their own custom, beautiful and eco-friendly front yard. Like a recipe, there can be limitless variations in ingredients, flavors and presentation but the basic steps always apply. The author takes the reader from Getting Started, where she shows how to create a base plan, drawn to scale on grid paper, which will become the foundation for Defining Your Vision, Creating Your Design, Selecting Your Plants, Accessorizing Your Yard, and finally, Installing Your Design.

Lawns now blanket thirty million acres of the United States, but until the late nineteenth century few Americans had any desire for a front lawn, much less access to seeds for growing one. In her comprehensive history of this uniquely American obsession, Virginia Scott Jenkins traces the origin of the front lawn aesthetic, the development of the lawn-care industry, its environmental impact, and modern as well as historic alternatives to lawn mania.

Voelker, Scott Windham, Mary C. Wright, Catherine Zeek

A 2013 study released by the United States Geological Survey found that the chemicals we're putting in our yards are now in every stream, river, and lake, and half of our well water—all the sources of our drinking water. But what, exactly, are these chemicals, and what do they do to us? And how do they get from our yards to our taps? In The Great Healthy Yard Project, physician Diane Lewis describes in cogent, nuanced terms how we are polluting our drinking water and how it's putting our children’s future at risk—and she offers a surprisingly easy way to chart a happier, healthier course forward, starting with changing the way we steward our yards.