A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat Gardens for Native Pollinators (Ontario and Great Lakes Edition)
Published in 2022 by Douglas & McIntyre Books, this collaboration with conservation scientist Sheila Colla and illustrator Ann Sanderson provides all the information people need to support and protect pollinators by creating habitat in yards and community spaces, on balconies and boulevards—anywhere and everywhere in Ontario and the Great Lakes region. Includes detailed profiles of more than 320 plants native to Ontario (trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, grasses, and vines).
Enthusiastic endorsements on the back cover from Douglas Tallamy, Heather Holm, Niki Jabbour, Beatrice Olivastri and Stephen Buchmann!
100 Easy-to-Grow Native Plants for Canadian Gardens (2017, 2005, 1999)
Now in its 3rd edition, this groundbreaking book was the first to focus on native plants for gardens across Canada, detailing “how-to-grow” information for a broad range of beautiful native plants and garden conditions, with suggestions of great plant combinations and companions. It still makes Lorraine smile that nobody noticed that a book promising 100 plants actually included 101. Honoured by the cover endorsement from David Suzuki.
City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing (2010)
Inspired by community activism around food growing, Lorraine wrote a book that explores some of the ways that urban agriculture is transforming North American cities into productive places that meet our most basic need for food close to home. The book tells stories about projects that expand the notion of what is possible in the urban environment, from backyard hens to rooftops to community gardens and farms to guerrilla gardening.
Tending the Earth: A Gardener’s Manifesto (2002)
Convinced that the ecological and community value of gardens was under-represented in popular gardening literature, Lorraine wrote a book about how our gardens connect to broader social, environmental and political issues. Her goal was to encourage people to create gardens that participate in positive change. This is an ongoing project, as urgent now as it was when she wrote this book 20 years ago. She dreams of one day revising and updating this book.
The Gardener’s Manifesto: Changing the World and Creating Beauty One Garden at a Time (2003)
The paperback edition of Tending the Earth.
Grow Wild! Native Plant Gardening in Canada and the Northern U.S. (1998)
Lorraine travelled across Canada and the northern U.S. to visit and write about native plant gardens and their beauty combined with ecological function. She hopes that this early celebration of native plant gardens inspired people to take up the trowel to participate in the natural processes our gardens can support.
The New Ontario Naturalized Garden: The Complete Guide to Using Native Plants (2001)
Introduced to the ecological importance of native plants and efforts to restore landscapes to health, Lorraine wrote a book about native plant gardening at a time when milkweed was illegal to grow in Ontario gardens and the term “native plant” was not often talked about in gardening. This is the revised edition of the first edition, The Ontario Naturalized Garden, published in 1995. Lorraine still feels a sense of pride about how ahead if its time this book was and how it introduced a generation of gardeners to native plant gardening.
The Natural Treasures of Carolinian Canada (2007)
While working and volunteering with the Carolinian Canada Coalition, Lorraine proposed to edit a collection of essays that would introduce readers to the fascinating ecology of southwestern Ontario. The resulting book, with contributions from conservationists and ecologists, highlights the special plants, animals and ecological communities unique to this incredible region of Canada.
Carolinian Canada Signature Sites (2005)
This 80-page booklet, published by the Carolinian Canada Coalition, is a guide to 38 special natural areas of critical ecological importance in the Carolinian region of southwestern Ontario, and celebrates the stewardship of communities, individuals, and organizations that are protecting, enhancing and restoring these natural areas. Some of the sites, such as the Rouge River Valley and Stone Road Alvar, are well known, and others, such as Sinclair’s Bush and Sudden Bog, are hidden treasures.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Suggestive Poses: Artists and Critics Respond to Censorship (1997)
In response to increasing state censorship of artistic expression, Lorraine edited this collection of thoughtful, defiant and challenging essays and artworks from artists and critics. Whether exposing the cost of censorship to artists who dare to push the boundaries of what is considered “acceptable,” or examining the contradictions of the state’s controlling intentions, the artists and critics who speak out in the collection pose suggestive questions, offer tenacious critiques and explore the fraught territory of the imagination under siege.
The Ontario Naturalized Garden: The Complete Guide to Using Native Plants (1995)
Lorraine’s first book on gardening with native plants. The revised and updated edition, The New Ontario Naturalized Garden, was published in 2001.
Canadian Gardener’s Guide (2019, 2015, 2012)
As Canadian editor of this guide, now in its 3rd edition, Lorraine covers flower, vegetable, and fruit gardening, plant and garden care, lawn maintenance, advice for common problems, and beautiful catalogs of plants for every type of soil and conditions. Advice on tools and guidance on how to build patios, fences, pergolas, and ponds are also included. Canadian gardeners will find topics relevant to their needs and interests, including native Canadian plants, fruit and vegetables for a short growing season, gardening in cold frames, and managing stormwater with a rain garden.
What Plant Where Encyclopedia (2015)
Lorraine is the Canadian editor of this compendium of more than 3,000 plants organized by size and garden situation. An encyclopedic guide, this book helps gardeners choose plants for different garden locations, from a sunny border in clay soil to a shady woodland or soggy pond perimeter. Plants are listed alphabetically by botanical name, with clear descriptions of their main characteristics and extensive photographs.
Garden Plants and Flowers: A-Z Guide to the Best Plants for your Garden (2006)
Lorraine is the Canadian editor of this A to Z compendium of more than 2,500 plants for Canadian gardens. With extensive photographs, the book covers trees, shrubs, vines, herbaceous plants, grasses and fees, and includes general information on caring for plants. Included is a list of plants for specific sites such as dry shade, sloping areas and acidic soils.
The Real Dirt: The Complete Guide to Backyard, Balcony and Apartment Composting (1992)
Lorraine jumped at the chance to co-author, with Mark Cullen, a book about composting because she belives that the transformation of food “waste” into soil is magic. (She still wishes that she was the one holding the pitchfork on the cover.) Her favourite response to the book was from the reviewer who said something along the lines of: we know who Mark Cullen is, but who’s the punk rock earth mother (it was 1992, after all!) standing beside him?
Green Future: How to Make a World of Difference (1990)
In the late 1980s, Lorraine left her job as Assistant Editor at Penguin Books to write a book about environmental issues and how global issues are connected with individual actions and choices. The book was published by Penguin in 1990, when climate change was called global warming, ozone depletion was on newspaper front pages, and people were asking “what can I do?” The book made an appearance on the Toronto Star’s bestseller list (for one week, anyway!).
Eyewitness Travel Guide to Chicago (2001)
A long-time traveller, Lorraine was delighted when DK publishers commissioned her to write a guidebook to Chicago. She spent six months exploring and learning about this wonderful city.
Top 10 Toronto (2005)
Another DK commission, writing this book gave Lorraine the chance to explore her home city from the perspective of a visitor.
Public Exposures: One Decade of Contemporary Canadian Photography (1990)
From the late-1980s to the early 2000s, Lorraine was very involved with the Toronto Photographers Workshop (now called Galley TPW), as an editor of all their publications (journal and exhibition catalogues), a Board member, and, on a few rare occasions, an exhibition co-curator. For this artist-run centre’s 10th anniversary in 1990, Lorraine edited a book, published by TPW, called Public Exposures: One Decade of Contemporary Canadian Photography.
The Thames River Watershed: A Heritage Landscape Guide (2009)
Substantially written by the late Michael Troughton, and completed by Cathy Quinlan, this book tells stories of the nature and culture, over millennia, of the Thames River watershed, which encompasses a significant portion of southwestern Ontario, a rich agricultural area that contains major urban centres. Lorraine was the editor of this guide, published by the Carolinian Canada Coalition and the Thames Canadian Heritage River Committee.