Flowers, Trees, and Shrubs

• Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: Their Identification, Ornamental Characteristics, Culture, Propogation and Uses (Paperback)  Author: Michael Dirr
• Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs: An Illustrated Encyclopedia [Illustrated]   Author: Michael Dirr
• Pruning (Rodale's Successful Organic Gardening) Author: Kris Medic
• The Natural Garden Author: Ken Druse
• The Natural Shade Garden: Ken Druse
• Caring For Perennials: What To Do and When To Do It Author: Janet Macunovich

Vegetable Gardening

• Rodale's Vegetable Garden Problem Solver    
  Author: Fern Marshall Bradley
• Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening (Paperback)
  Author: Louis Riotte
• The Postage Stamp Garden Book: Grow Tons of Vegetables in Small Places
  Author: Duane G. Newcomb and Karen Newcomb

Composting

• The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener (Paperback)
  Editors: Grace Gershuny, Deborah Martin

Insects & Diseases

• The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals (Paperback) Editors:  Barbara W. Ellis, Fern Marshall Bradley
• Rodale's Flower Garden Problem Solver: Annuals, Perennials, Bulbs, and Roses Authors: Jeff Ball, Liz Ball
• American Horticultural Society Pests and Diseases: The Complete Guide to Preventing, Identifying and Treating Plant Problems Authors: Pippa Greenwood, Andrew Halstead, A.R. Chase, and Daniel Gilrein

Landscaping

• Gardening with Prairie Plants: How to Create Beautiful Native Landscape Author: Sally Wasocki
• Landscaping with Wildflowers : An Environmental Approach to Gardening Author: James W. Wilson

The Environment

• Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect
  Author: David W. Orr, 1994, Island Press
  Dept. Head of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College examines the roles that education and politics plays in our greater understandings of the environments around us.  Easy to read and should be part of every one's library and classroom.
• Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment
  Author: Sandra Steingraber
  Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, and survivor of cancer in her twenties, brings all three perspectives to bear on the most important health and human rights issue of our time: the growing body of evidence linking cancer to environmental contamination. In a gripping personal narrative, she travels from hospital waiting rooms to hazardous waste sites and from farmhouse kitchens to incinerator hearings, bringing to life stories of communities in her hometown and around the country as they confront decades of industrial and agricultural recklessness.
• Noah's Garden: Restoring the ecology of our own backyards
  Author:  Sara Stein

WEB SITES

AMERICAN COMMUNITY GARDENING ASSOCIATION
The American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) is a national nonprofit membership organization of professionals, volunteers and supporters of community greening in urban and rural communities.

CHICAGOLAND GROWS: Offers the landscape professional and the home gardener alike an appealing array of quality plants. Established in 1986, Chicagoland Grows is a unique partnership among the Chicago Botanic Garden, The Morton Arboretum and the Ornamental Growers Association of Northern Illinois (OGA). Collectively, the partners work with other industry professionals throughout North America to select, evaluate, produce and market new and recommended plant cultivars with proven performance under Northern growing conditions.

CHICAGO WILDERNESS: Full of information of Chicago's wilderness, biodiversity, lists of native plants  for the home landscape - and more.

MIDWEST ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION (MELA)  {melaweb.org) > Founded in 2002 to promote environmentally responsible landscaping and horticultural practices to professionals and the public. Our mission is to serve as an educational and scientific resource for the horticultural industry. We pursue these goals through education, advocacy and networking.

WILD ONES - NATURAL LANDSCAPES, LTD: A non-profit organization with a mission to educate and share information with members and community at the "plant-roots" level and to promote biodiversity and environmentally sound practices. Their diverse membership is interested in landscaping using native species in developing plant communities.

LANDSCAPE PLANTS OF THE UPPER MIDWEST: An interactive guide specific to the upper Midwest United States providing information on more than 600 species and varieties common to this region. It features more than 1,800 color photos and the ability to search using any combination of 42 characteristics including size, light requirements, landscape application, etc.

GREEN ACRES: {http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/greenacres/index.html} An Environmental Protection Agency site with a wealth of material about green landscaping, with a special emphasis on native plants of different regions.

LITTLE VILLAGE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ORG: Works with our families, coworkers, and neighbors to improve the environment and lives in  Little Village and  Chicago through democracy in action. Works for a real voice in building democracy, including if, how, when and where any development of our communities takes place, as the basis for environmental, economic and social justice.

GREENET:  A coalition of non-profit organizations and public agencies committed to sharing information and resources; to serving as a clearinghouse for information about greening in Chicago; and to developing joint efforts to improve the quality, amount, use, and wide geographic distribution of sustainable, green open space in the City of Chicago. If you want to read more about the coalition, click here.

OPENLANDS PROJECT: One of the nation's oldest and most successful urban conservation organizations. In its forty-year life it has helped to secure more than 45,000 acres of public parks, forest preserves, land and water greenway corridors and urban gardens in the Chicago area.

CHICAGO WILDERNESS
The Chicago Wilderness coalition is an unprecedented alliance of more than 160 public and private organizations working together to protect, restore, study and manage the precious natural ecosystems of the Chicago region for the benefit of the public.

CHICAGO RECYCLING ASSOCIATTION: a not-for-profit organization that promotes source-separated recycling and composting for Chicago's residents, businesses and schools. It serves the community in an educational and advisory capacity through its newsletter, website and special events.

RADIO

• Mike Nowak's Garden Talk
  Sundays: 12:00 Noon, CST 720 AM
• DEMOCRACY NOW
  www.democracynow.org
  Good in depth coverage of local and global news not found anywhere else.

FILMS

• Blue Vinyl
  http://www.bluevinyl.org
  A toxic comedy look at vinyl, the world's second largest selling plastic. With humor, hope and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director Daniel B. Gold travel from Helfand’s hometown to America’s vinyl manufacturing capital and beyond in search of answers about the nature of polyvinyl chloride (PVC). 80 minutes.
• Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia
  http://www.ban.org
  A documentary based on an investigative report revealing that huge quantities of hazardous electronic wastes (E-wastes) are being exported to China, Pakistan and India where they are processed in operations that are extremely harmful to human health and the environment. 23 minutes.
• Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage
  Distributed by: http://www.akpress.org
  To investigate the roots of our waste addicted culture, Heather Rogers excavates the history of garbage handling from the 1800s to the post-WWII golden era of consumption, up through the contradictions of modern day recycling. 19 minutes.