The Wildlife Garden: Planning Backyard Habitats

The concept of creating a home landscape that can attract local and migrating wildlife is intriguing, but Seindenberg's rambling treatment will be of very little practical help to gardeners outside her own Southeastern habitat. A New Orleans gardener, she extensively details her region's diverse plant communities, e.g., Gulf Coastal Prairie and Wet River Floodplain Forests, demonstrating a voluminous amount of research and a personal commitment drawn from ``my dawning awareness of the interconnectedness of things--plants, animals, air, soil, water--right here in my own city and state, not off in a faraway rainforest.'' General advice, such as choosing plantings that have been started in nurseries in habitats similar to the places they'll be transplanted, is interspersed among the lengthy listings of trees, shrubs and other plants, almost all of which are indigenous to the Southeast. A comprehensive bibliography is included; illustrations not seen by PW. (Dec.)