Secret Garden: Dawn to Dusk in the Astonishing Hidden World of the Garden ANNOTATION
In a tour de force of science writing, Bodanis takes us through the daylight hours in an ordinary garden and introduces us to a Darwinian epic of survival played out invisibly around us and beneath our feet. The lively text is enhanced by state-of-the-art microphotography as in his acclaimed The Secret House, which The New York Times called "astounding."
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Every day in the hours between dawn and dusk, in gardens and backyards everywhere a curious invisible world comes to life around us and beneath our feet. In The Secret Garden, David Bodanis takes us on an eye-opening journey through this mysterious domain where plants and insects engage daily in a Darwinian epic of survival. Ants navigate through a forest of grass blades, forming networks that act as a living "computer" to gather intelligence from the world above. Caterpillars attack a shrub, which in turn sends up a chemical signal to call for help from a passing wasp. Roots from different plants battle one another underground with sophisticated chemical weapons, releasing poisonous gases into the soil. A tiny triungulin, the juvenile form of a common beetle, launches itself from a geranium leaf to latch on to a passing bee. An oak tree registers where a beetle is biting into its bark and targets the damaged quadrant with dangerous poisons, while other trees puff out warning vapors when they're under attack by insects. Through it all wander a couple who are oblivious to the activity taking place around them and unaware of the effect their very presence has on the garden's environment. As in his wonderful previous book, The Secret House, David Bodanis once again guides us through the terrain of the familiar yet unseen world around us and brilliantly transforms it. Written with the same witty style that The Washington Post called "marvelously captivating" and illustrated throughout with state-of-the-art microphotographs, The Secret Garden is an astonishing book that will fascinate and delight anyone who has ever set foot in a garden.
FROM THE CRITICS
BookList - George Cohen
Though somewhat scholarly, Bodanis' book is lively enough to be enjoyed by all gardeners. Bodanis writes that a half-inch-thick pinch of soil contains millions of miniature insects and 5 billion or so bacteria. He tells us that the ladybugs' wobbling is not a design mistake, but a way of getting a good trigonometric fix on the object that its ground-surface analyzers have selected as a better landing surface. Bodanis relates that bleary-eyed beetles are one of the few insects that can eat willow leaves and survive because they alone can tolerate the willow poison. And that "killer" tomatoes will produce a defensive protein controller and pump it to any leaf that is being eaten by a caterpillar. And these are just some of the facts Bodanis shares with flair.
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