While native and invasive species duke it out for dominance over this tiny piece of earth, they enact a chronicle of New World versus Old World, strikingly similar to the human history of America.Īs the seasons progress, Holmes calls in the experts, inviting over biologists, botanists, entomologists, ecologists, and energy specialists to guide us through this bustling community of plants and animals. As she befriends some and runs from othersskunks, for example, prove to be the sort of neighbors best kept at arm's lengthshe also unearths fascinating and ferocious struggles in the plant world. And what discoveries she made: Holmes here describes a world teeming with charming and not so charming animals, from alarmist crows to cheeky chipmunks, graceful spiders to sinister earthworms. Yet as science writer Hannah Holmes reveals in this investigation into that little patch of grass in our backyard, there's a whole circus of activity taking place right under our noses.Įquipped with just a notebook and her infectious curiosity, Holmes spent a year on her lawn to discover exactly what's going on. Criticized by ecologists as 'sterile' and 'unnatural,' this lovingly cultivated swath has been recast as a homeowner's guilty pleasure. The lush green lawn is a long-standing symbol of success in America, but for the past few decades it has also gotten a bad rap. Her science and travel writing has appeared in publications including the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine.

Hannah Holmes is the author of The Secret Life of Dust. Suburban Safari is a fascinating and often hilarious record of her discoveries: that many animals adore the suburban environment, including bears and cougars venturing in from the woods how plants, in their struggle for dominance, communicate with their own kind and battle other species and that ways already exist for us to grow healthier, livelier lawns.

Science writer Hannah Holmes spent a year appraising the lawn through the eyes of the squirrels, crows, worms, and spiders who think of her backyard as their own. To some, its a green oasis to others, its eco-purgatory. The suburban lawn sprouts a crop of contradictory myths.

Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes