Birds & Blooms is the #1 bird and garden magazine in North America with more than 1 million subscribers. We pride ourselves in celebrating the “beauty in your own backyard” with a mix of expert advice and personal stories from our family of readers. Our magazine covers a wide range of topics such as attracting hummingbirds, building birdhouses, gardening for butterflies, feeding birds for less, growing veggies, tales of readers’ birding experiences, plus a whole lot more. Visit their website at: http://www.birdsandblooms.com

 

Roanoke Valley Home Magazine - see the Summer 2016 issue!: http://rvhomemag.com/roanoke-valley-summer-2016/

The review of the new book THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES unveils only a little of the 'secret world' of the forest, the plants and trees that live there. It's an entire social network that talks to, heals, produces chemical compounds and transmits all to each other through the "Wood Wide Web"! WHO KNEW!! This is not only a must have book for anyone interested in the world around them, but it would make a great gift to that special friend. Start the new year off with this great mystery read by Peter Wohlleben and find out what you DON'T know about trees and all their woodsy friends. Sounds like a group we all should get to know better!

ISBN # 9781771642484 for those other "wood wide web friends"

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart

A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In Wicked Plants, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).

Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers. Find at Amazon.com 

 

Pretty Poison (A Peggy Lee Garden Mystery Book 1) by Joyce Lavene

Meet Peggy Lee: botanist, detective’s widow, and owner of The Potting Shed, an urban gardener’s paradise in downtown Charlotte. Mild winters keep the store thriving all year round, but at least one person in the city has colder intentions.

It’s another busy fall day for Peggy. First she gives a quick café lecture on African violets, then has a minor bike accident involving a good-looking Saturn driver…and finally reaches her shop only to find a dead man sprawled face down across one of her seasonal displays, apparently done to death with a garden shovel. Find at Amazon.com