The Prairie Gardener's Book of Bugs: A Guide to Living With Common Garden Insects

The very appearance of an unfamiliar bug on a dearly beloved tree, shrub, or plant is enough to set the alarm bells ringing for prairie gardeners, inspiring such burning questions as:

What is it?
What does it eat?
Is it friend or foe?
What can I do about it?

Authors Nora Bryan and Ruth Staal answer these questions and more.

Written with skill, insight, and humour, their book describes and discusses over a hundred insects, spiders, mites, slugs, and earthworms that frequent prairie gardens.

Part I: Living with Bugs comprises six chapters that provide background information on all aspects of prairie garden bugs. Learn about their similarities, differences, and lifecycles; their collective importance to the health of a garden; diagnosing trouble; cultural controls; and the "Pandora's bottle" of pesticides. The discussion on pesticide is particularly enlightening, giving gardeners the tools to make good choices when it comes to buying and applying chemicals to garden pests.

Part II: Bug Profiles comprises eight chapters that provide detailed descriptions of the insects, spiders, mites, slugs, and earthworms that call prairie gardens home. Beautifully depicted in full-colour illustrations by Grace Buzik, the bug entries are grouped by a distinguishing characteristic or by the type of plants they attack. Each entry has a "Bug at a Glance" section that summarizes the type of bug, its size, what it looks like, where you find it, when you find it, what it eats, friend or foe, and what to do about it.

Ruth Staal, affectionately known in Calgary as "The Bug Lady" and Nora Bryan are avid prairie gardeners who embrace a "live-and-let-live" approach. They are active members of the Calgary Horticultural Society.