Buchanan defines a wildlife sanctuary garden in her opening paragraph:
A wildlife sanctuary garden, no matter how small, is a haven for the wild creatures and the people who share the space. Without you and your family, it's not a garden; without the wildlife, it won't be a wildlife sanctuary. (Page 7)
Within this first chapter, Buchanan presents a brief history of gardening in America. She obviously applauds today's move toward using more native plants and less formal elements in our gardens. Unfortunately, she also reminds us that a wildlife sanctuary will also attract predators.
The next chapter discusses the process of designing a sanctuary garden. She provides information for various geographical regions and different garden sizes. Suburban lots to patios are discussed and considered useable for creating this type garden. Chapter 4 then provides all the information you need to learn to garden with native plants. This is important because so many of our traditional flowers originated on other continents and all to often, aren't really suitable for us because of the high maintenance they require. These imports also fail to provide food our wildlife would naturally use.
Attracting Animals, the title of Chapter 4, is an excellent description of the contents of this chapter. Buchanan tells you what you need to know to attract anything from sowbugs to butterflies, birds, and larger animals. I particularly appreciate her list of cautions pertaining to the interaction between humans and animals. The following chapter talks about creating backyard wetlands. As a country, we've destroyed our wetlands at an alarming rate. Buchanan encourages every home owner to put some type of water feature into their gardens to help provide water for wildlife.
Benign methods of controlling pests (plants and animals) are discussed in Chapter 7. This focuses on such tactics as allowing natural food chains to occur -- even if it means witnessing predators killing smaller creatures. She does encourage us to destroy plants which fall into the "noxious weeds" category as determined by your state's Department of Agriculture or other agency. Another major pest is discussed, cats! Unfortunately, there seems to be no long term method of effectively controlling our neighbor's cats. [My personal opinion is that cats should be licensed and leashed just like dogs! Then people could be fined if their cat was found running free.] The final two chapters present some of the benefits of creating a wildlife sanctuary and offers additional sources of information.
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