From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Plenty of books have been published in recent years about how to design gardens to attract and sustain desirable wildlife. Seidenberg (The New Orleans Garden: Gardening in the Gulf South, Univ. Pr. of Mississippi, 1993) herself reprints so much information from other sources that her book functions as a review of the current literature. The contrast between the factual, quoted material and her own breathless style makes for choppy reading. However, there is a wealth of material here that should be especially valuable for gardeners in the lower South. Nowhere else does one find such detailed lists of the fauna supported by specific native and garden plants. Seidenberg also explains how to use organic gardening and ecological principles to create a thriving mini-ecosystem, but she soft-pedals the problem of convincing neighbors that your meadow garden is more than an untended lot. A worthy choice for gardening collections in her region; an optional purchase elsewhere.?Beth Clewis Crim, Prince William P.L., Va.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
