“The most important landscape book since McHarg’s Design with Nature.”
From the foreword
“For ecological planting design to be more than greenwashing, this book provides much-needed and long-awaited access to principles, strategies, and specific directions. In many ways, this book is recognition of our newfound sophistication and of how far we have come since the era of “progress” of the 1950s to the 1980s and since Ian McHarg wrote Design with Nature in 1969. With our increasing need to change the destructive plans and practices of the recent past, and with our growing familiarity with ecological ideas, this book is an indispensable next step, firmly linking the breadth and depth of essential ecological processes directly to design actions. In doing so, Beck has given us a new and better toolbox for ecological planting design.”
Carol Franklin, RLA, FASLA
Founding Principal, Andropogon Associates, Ltd.
“Finally! Real science for planting projects – design, restoration, urban, or rural. Plant ecology, complex adaptive systems, and landscape ecology concepts are clearly explained and practically applied, with compelling examples. It deals rationally with natives, invasives, and climate change. This book is an essential twenty-first century tool.”