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Title: In a Desert Garden: Love and Death Among the Insects by John Alcock, Turid Forsyth ISBN: 0-8165-1970-6 Publisher: University of Arizona Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Nature, neighbours and night quests
Comment: John Alcock loves Nature. Sometimes, though, getting from a suburban home to the wilderness he relishes can be tedious. So he brought some of his favoured Sonoran Desert environment to his front yard. Using a ramshackle Kubota tractor, he stripped away the layer of Bermuda grass surrounding his house. Over time, and with no little effort, he transformed that yard into a little pocket of desert environment. All this was more than an exercise in redecorating, however. Alcock studies insects, especially their mating rituals, and this transplanted environment gave him ample opportunity. Even if his practice of crouching over desert shrubbery at odd hours raised a few neighbourhood eyebrows.
Alcock loves what he does, imparting his passion to us with lively prose. His academic background merges with his expressions of feeling to keep this book a delight to read. This blending places his writing skills in a comfortable [and comforting] niche somewhere between E. O. Wilson and John McPhee or David Quammen. He keeps you at ease as he builds the desert floor, inserts shrubbery and vegetables, and welcomes the bird and insect visitors to his creation. He protects the native species of plants and animals where possible, but doesn't summarily reject harmless exotics. And he carefully explains how to tell the difference.
The underlying reason for the garden's transformation was to attract insects. Alcock is at his best in watching, analysing and explaining the life styles of desert bees, wasps, beetles and the rest. How did they develop those behaviours? What do their activities it mean to us humans, who are too often ardently killing the ones in our own gardens. He poses his questions with the puzzlement of fresh discovery. Then, adroitly picking through the available evidence - while calling out for further studies - he sifts through the optional answers to deliver the most likely, and most logical scenario. Yet, at no point are you being "lectured to". Instead, you are introduced to some of the awesome array of variation nature offers. This is no specialist's daunting lecture, but the confessions of a man who finds wonder in small things. It's also, of course, an example for any reader to enter his own yard to consider restoring it some state of origins instead of developer's artificiality.
Alcock's view of his environment isn't wholly without concerns, however. There's no question of his concern for the impact of unrestricted "development". Phoenix, the urban hub of his home in Tempe, is one of the fastest growing cities in the US. With reconstructed landscapes, imported species, proliferating golf courses and a staggering consumption of water, this emblem of "progress" is another urban blight on the landscape. Alcock is uncomfortable with this situation, but nearly helpless to block it. His example of bringing some of the countryside into the city and restoring a bit of balance at a time is an example we should all consider carefully. His book's photo collection will make every gardener smile knowingly. The illustrations portray the object of his studies. With this combination he has produced an example of what a single individual [with some spousal support] can achieve, and told us all about it in this fine book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating: 5
Summary: Fabulous, witty, insightful
Comment: I thoroughly enjoyed this intersting, thought provoking book from John Alcock. His thoughts on the modern American lawn should be required reading in the suburbs. The world would be a better place if all would read and comprehend his thoughts on connecting ourselves to the myriad wonders that go on all around us every day.
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Title: For Love of Insects by Thomas Eisner ISBN: 0674011813 Publisher: Belknap Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Sonoran Desert Summer by John Alcock, Marilyn Hoff Stewart ISBN: 0816514380 Publisher: University of Arizona Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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