The Natural Water Garden

The next wave in water gardening gathers momentum in this small but bountiful volume. More than a brief on the virtues of wetlands, this collection of instructive essays by experts shows how to create residential wet gardens by mimicking local marshes, bogs and streams. Here, to be in the contemporary thick of gardening means to be up to the elbow in muck and murky water--whether it's a whiskey barrel marsh or a 20' 30' excavated pond. ""More than an aesthetic flourish,"" observes Burrell, these gardens are ecosystems where hydrology (water's comings and goings) determines vegetation (which can be submersed and emergent), which in turn determines wildlife (which may fly, creep and swim). The contributers offer uncomplicated advice on installing rigid fiberglass and flexible plastic liners, transmuting tap water into healthy pondwater and constructing several water environments--e.g., converting roof-water run-off into a marsh or turning lawn turf into wet meadow. For each of six regions in the continental U.S. and southern Canada, 15 exemplary plants are profiled (including trees, shrubs, perennials, vines and grasses). Lists of additional varieties and nursery sources enhance the volume's utility. Having borne the reputation of messy, mosquito-infested no-man's lands, wetlands claim a nobler, deserved identity here. (June)