MINI MEADOWS – Mike Lizotte
By Line: Grow a Little Patch of Colorful Flowers Anywhere Around Your Yard
Storey Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-6121-2835-1
March 2019
Non-fiction, Home & Garden

This rather concise book is filled with fascinating information and some gorgeous photographs. We are mostly used to well-defined landscapes in gardening, not wild, almost unplanned looking spaces, so the author explains why the reader should want to create a meadow garden in their yard. Considering today's world and for this reader, he gave many great reasons. The first purpose being meadows create low maintenance places of beauty, especially good in dangerous to mow areas like steep slopes. Along with this, meadows can provide important habitats for our endangered pollinators, birds, and other wildlife. They can also help engage children in learning about the natural environment. Nor does he define a meadow as acres of empty grassland and weeds. It is a glorious jumble of blooming plants and grasses during the entire growing season from spring to fall. It can include an area as small as ten feet square, or the ‘hellstrip' between a yard's sidewalk and the street. For that matter, it can be a simple planter. These cultivated meadows also greatly reduce mowing. He presents an interesting statistic given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that estimates a loss of 17 million gallons of gas spilled and wasted a year when filling lawn mowers. A good enough reason to promote meadows.

Author Lizotte tells how to develop a meadow by explaining what types of annual, biennial, or perennial plants and grasses can be used in either dry or wet areas, sunny or partial shade, in different soils, and in the varying regions of the U.S. In short, he gives an easy to comprehend instruction for even the most uninformed gardeners or yard owners. It is a very different look at what gardens can include and what most gardeners consider gardens. Well done.

Robin Lee