Hope it was good!

I admit I'm an addictive plant book collector and just went to my shelves to see what I had on natives. What I found interesting is that I don't have any books specific to woodland natives, except for some that includes them and some that are about shade but not exclusive to natives. I have lots on prairie plants however. I really need to catalog my books someday - not during planting season though! In addition to the Diekelmann book, these are some of my native gardening books in no particular order: Gardening with Wildflowers and Native Plants published by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record 1989. -a little book of collected articles, still relevant. Jones, Samuel B. and Foote, Leonard E. 1990. Gardening with Native Wild Flowers. Timber Press. 195 pgs. -My first native plant book, and still one of the best. Ladd, Doug and Oberle, Frank. 2005. Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers. Morris Book Publishing. 263 pgs. -a very good field guide with excellent photos. Plants grouped by color. Johnson, Lorraine. 1998. Grow Wild!:Native Plant Gardening in Canada. Denise Schon Books. 154 pgs. -Lorraine Johnson is to Canada what Bill Cullina is to the US. A very useful book from coast to coast. Smith, J. Robert. 1980. The Prairie Garden: 70 Native Plants You Can Grow in Town or Country. University of Wisconsin Press. 219 pgs. -charts for habitat, color, and bloom times Wasowski, Sally. 2002. Gardening with Prairie Plants. University of Minnesota Press. 285 pgs. -I consider this the essential book for prairie gardens. Sternberg, Gus and Wilson, Jim. 1995. Landscaping with Native Trees. Chapters Publishing. 288 pgs. -Often we forget about planting native trees. Good info. Daniels, Stevie. 1995. The Wild Lawn Handbook: Alternatives to the Traditional Front Lawn. Macmillan. 223 pgs. -My first book on banning the bluegrass! Funny I live in Kentucky now. Also several local native plant guides and books on planting natives for wildlife habitat. And books on "natural" gardening that showcase natives but include some exotics, I'm thinking of the Druse books in particular. I'm going to have to pick up some of the books you have mentioned. And then get around to cataloging and organizing my library!

If you have a meadow going in your hot Z9, you are very lucky. (Most FL gardens are alien tropicals.) I would not remove it. BTW, do you burn it sometimes? That is one of the reasons I haven't tried a meadow, but the other is the heat where I live. I have always thought they were so pretty. It is all personal taste, really.

I don't know if I am the best person to answer your question, since I am just repeating what I have read elsewhere rather than writing from experience. The best composting worm is eisenia foetida, also called red worms. A good composting worm that makes good fish bait is eisenia hortensis, also called European nightcrawlers. They reproduce slower than eisenia foetida, so it may take a while to get a population large enough to use them for fishing. You need to careful about native worms. There are three types of worms. One type digs deep burrows in the dirt and lives in them throughout their lives. They come to the surface to eat. A second type digs horizontal burrows in the dirt and eats whatever organic matter it encounters while burrowing. The third kind lives in organic matter on the surface. Only the third kind of worm can live in a worm bin. If you find native worms in a manure pile, they might work. If you dig them up out of the ground, or find them on the surface of a lawn at night, they won't work.