A plan for creating a garden that is alluring to beneficial native wildlife and aesthetically pleasing to the gardener

In this guide to good gardening a southerner well known both for her common sense and her sage advice on horticulture will help you create a habitat that is both useful to wildlife and beautiful to people.

Describing a system that restores essential aspects of the natural landscape that predate the garden, she takes you through the steps of planning a backyard garden that will appeal to many varieties of wildlife--charismatic hummers and other birds, desirable insects, arachnids, molluscs, reptiles, and amphibians. She tells how to select a balance of plants, where to place them, how to prepare the soil as a habitat, and how to provide the basic requirements of native fauna--food, cover, reproductive space, and water.

For backyard gardeners with the dual objective of creating a haven for both beautiful plants and beneficial wildlife this handbook is indispensable.

Charlotte Seidenberg, an avid gardener and birder in New Orleans, is the author of The New Orleans Garden: Gardening in the Gulf South (University Press of Mississippi). She also is a registered nurse who has her own medical consulting firm.

224 pp., 18 b&w drawings