By Anne Milligan and Stephen Brown
Reviewed by Susan Harkins
When asked how to design a new garden, my favorite response is: Keep your camera with you everywhere you go. When you see something you like, take a picture of it. Later, match the looks you love to your property while considering sun, water, soil, and grading. It’s the best advice I can give because someone with no idea what to do needs a bit of inspiration before they can start buying plants.
If you’re thinking of restoring your property to nature—using native plants—and you need encouragement or inspiration, then Let the Earth Breathe should be one of your first resources. It will complement your stack of pictures because you’re following the authors on their journey while you start your own. This isn’t your ordinary gardening book with lots of information on culture, botany, and so on. The book does include a lot of information about the native plants they chose, but plant culture isn’t the focus of this book. Instead, this book chronicles one family’s journey back to nature.
The book starts with an introduction to the importance of using native plants and why you should avoid invasives. The rest of the book shares the route they took to return their new property to nature using native trees, shrubbery, and wildflowers. Throughout the book, you’ll see patches of gorgeous plants and some hardscapes. In fact, this book has inspired me to assess my yard for hardscape and that intention quality that appeases neighbors. Every fall and winter, I plan better paths but somehow that just hasn’t happened. After working my way through Let the Earth Breathe, I’ve decided that this is the year!
Their journey begins in 2010 when they put in a rain garden filled with native plants that love moist soils. Their reason for the rain garden was to help retain runoff. The book ends in 2016, but trust me, their journey has just started.
You gain the benefit of their decisions and as you turn each page, you get the joy of viewing beautiful swatches of their rebounding yard. So, back to what I said at the beginning—this book will inspire and encourage you. I know that I said, “Ooooo, I want to do that…” every time I turned a page.
Read how the authors did it knowing that you can do it too.
You can purchase this book by visiting lettheearthbreathe.org.
Anne Milligan is a former Clinical Social Worker, an artist, singer/musician, and landscape designer. She and her husband, author and historian Stephen A. Brown, live in Southeast Jefferson County. Their Kentucky native plants sanctuary has been featured in The Louisville Courier-Journal and the Louisville Magazine.
Susan Harkins is the Managing Editor of The Lady Slipper. In real life, she is a technical journalist with 35 years in the IT industry, but her passion is native plants. A long-time member of the Capital Area Extension Master Gardener Association, she enjoys using her publishing skills to share her love of Kentucky’s native flora and fauna.