The Bottom Line
Whitney Cranshaw, a Colorado State University entomologist, is one of North America's foremost experts on garden pests. His book Garden Insects of North America should be on every gardener's bookshelf (or at least those gardening in North America!). It's a useful reference for insect enthusiasts, too, whether you garden or not. With hundreds of full color photographs and well-written insect life histories, this reference is truly the ultimate guide to backyard bugs.
Pros
- Organized for the gardener, not the insect expert
- Descriptions and photos of full insect life cycles, helpful for pest ID
- Hundreds of full color photos
- Similar-looking species grouped together
- List of host plants and their common pests provided as an appendix
Cons
- Control measures for pests covered generally in a separate chapter
- Limited information on beneficial insects
Description
- A field guide to pests of the yard and garden, with hundreds of full color photographs
- Pests are organized by area of the plant they injure and the type of injury they inflict (leaf chewers, sap suckers, etc.)
- Written by Whitney Cranshaw, professor and extension entomologist at Colorado State University
Guide Review - Garden Insects of North America
As a gardener, I meet a lot of insects among the vegetables and flowers. Sometimes, I find evidence of pests – chewed leaves, wilted foliage – but can't seem to locate the perpetrator. Whatever the circumstance, anytime I encounter a pest problem in my garden, the first book I pull from my shelf is Garden Insects of North America, by entomologist Whitney Cranshaw.
Most insect guide authors organize the insect profiles taxonomically, which means you need some idea of whether your pest is a beetle, a caterpillar, or a weevil before you can even try to identify it. Cranshaw arranges the pests as a gardener would identify them, by the damage they do to garden plants. Is something chewing on your leaves? Go right to chapter 3 – Leaf Chewers. Are there galls on your plants? That's covered in chapter 7 – Gall Makers.
Once you've identified the damage to your plants and turned to the relevant chapter, Cranshaw provides hundreds of full color photographs to help you narrow down the suspect pests. Most importantly, his photographs depict the insects in various stages of their life cycles – eggs, larvae, nymphs, pupae, and adults. He also shows you what the damage may look like on an infested plant. Each of the most common pests is profiled in detail. For some species, he also notes other species that are related or similar in appearance, so you can be sure you've got the correct pest.
Garden Insects of North America also includes an appendix to host plants and their associated insect and mite pests. Here, you can find a plant (by genus) and learn which pests might be a problem. Look up cyclamen, for example, and you'll find they may attract mealybugs, aphids, thrips, and two kinds of mites. Knowing a particular plant is prone to a lot of pests can certainly help you make decisions about what to plant in your garden.
