This comprehensive guide to controlling pests in your home and garden (and even on your pets!) is packed with simple and effective ways to avoid chemical pesticides that can kill off beneficial insects and keep useful reptiles and birds from making anyone's yard their home. Let nature's balance work to your advantage with plants that attract helpful insects and repel destructive ones, all-purpose pest repellants like garlic and chile peppers, and beneficial creatures like bats, green lacewings, hummingbirds, and lizards. Includes safe methods for eliminating ants, roaches, and rodents; ways to get rid of fleas and other critters that plague pets; and even a buying guide to the beneficial organisms you want in your garden (whether you know it or not).

From the Trade Paperback edition.