Landscaping with Nature: Using Nature's Design to Plan Your Yard

The growing tendency to make use of natural elements--wood, water, stone, native plants--to consciously create a bit of wilderness in one's own backyard is addressed in this energetic volume. Packed with information on the larger considerations of natural garden design, such as shapes, colors, texture, proportion and scale, as well as with the more practical means of carrying these out--with paths, small rivers and ponds, ground covers and grasses--the book is a valuable resource, if only for its extensive lists of native plants, the project guides that pepper the book, and seemingly endless suggestions for garden plans. Here is everything from instructions for making a natural terrace to charts of native wildflowers by color and region; also included are suggestions for attracting wildlife to the garden. But the authors go overboard when they advocate designing stonework according to ``melodic arrangements'' suggested by songs, and urge squinting at a landscape (``It simplifies things''). (Jan.)