After spending several months cooped up inside, immobilized, recovering from a back injury sustained during a car accident, Abby Artemisia had a realization: “I realized how vital nature is to my life, how much I missed it and how precious every moment is. … I realized I’d never be happy working inside and had to do something that fulfilled me.”  

Although gardeners have always been drawn to the exotic, the authors of this book encourage exactly the opposite approach and eye non-native plants as encroachers. As gardeners themselves, this husband and wife team has transformed their own grounds from a traditional mixture of naturalized and native plants to one that harbors only natives to the benefit of birds, butterflies, bees and other life.