Product Description

Permaculture is a verbal marriage of "permanent" and "agriculture." Australian Bill Mollison pioneered its development. Key features include: * use of compatible perennials; * non-invasive planting techniques; * emphasis on biodiversity; * specifically adaptable to local climate, landscape, and soil conditions; * highly productive output of edibles. Now, picture your backyard as one incredibly lush garden, filled with edible flowers, bursting with fruit and berries, and carpeted with scented herbs and tangy salad greens. The visual impact is of Monet's palette, a wash of color, texture, and hue. But this is no still life. The flowers nurture endangered pollinators. Bright-featured songbirds feed on abundant berries and gather twigs for their nests. The plants themselves are grouped in natural communities, where each species plays a role in building soil, deterring pests, storing nutrients, and luring beneficial insects. And finally, you--good ol' homo sapiens--are an integral part of the scene. Your garden tools are resting against a nearby tree, and have a slight patina of rust, because this garden requires so little maintenance. You recline into a hammock to admire your work. You have created a garden paradise. This is no dream, but rather an ecological garden, which takes the principles of permaculture and applies them on a home-scale. There is nothing technical, intrusive, secretive, or expensive about this form of gardening. All that is required is some botanical knowledge (which is in this book) and a mindset that defines a backyard paradise as something other than a carpet of grass fed by MiracleGro.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87247 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From Library Journal
Hemenway, a permaculture expert and associate editor of The Permaculture Activist, explains how gardens can function as ecosystems, describes the basic parts of an ecological garden (soil, water, plants, and animals), and shows how to create backyard ecosystems through guilds. Guilds, the author tells us, are groups of plants that function as an ecosystem to provide products for humans, create cover and food for wildlife, nourish the soil, conserve water, and repel pests. A simple example of a guild is the "three sisters" (corn, beans, and squash); corn stalks provide a trellis for beans, the beans supply nitrogen to the soil, and the squash leaves inhibit weeds and conserve water. While Hemenway's ideas are intriguing, creating guilds specific to an area involves extensive research, which involves either observing plant communities in the wild or using books or university contacts. In addition, the author doesn't sufficiently explain how to incorporate the many sun-loving vegetables and flowers into guilds, which are often shade-oriented. Recommended only for botanical and academic libraries. Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Toby Hemenway teaches permaculture and consults and lectures on ecological design throughout the country. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Whole Earth Review, Natural Home, Permaculture Activist, and Kitchen Gardener.He worked in biotechnology for a number of years before moving into permaculture. He was the editor of Permaculture Activist for five years and is currently working to develop urban sustainability resources in Portland, Oregon where he lives.

Customer Reviews

Gardening for Joy
This book has brought some fantastic ideas into my garden. The book presents some new ideas that have opened up some wonderful possibilities in my whole yard. I deeply enjoyed that the book neither addresses only those with vast horticultural degrees nor speaks only to novices. The author succinctly makes his point and backs it with interesting and insightful expamples.

I have been gardening organically for over 25 years and can handle most problems with a bit of effort. This book has changed my view and greatly decreased the amount of time needed to maintain my garden. Rather than responding to the problems as they occur, it gives ingenious ways to head them off or to turn them into positives.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs new ideas for their garden, regardless of size.

Frustratingly Inconsistent!
This book does a great job of summarizing the concepts in Mollison's "Permaculture." It also contains good tables on plants for various purposes and a good resource list. But it has a very BIG flaw! Hemenway is supposedly telling us how to design a permaculture space at the home scale, yet nowhere can I find that he has any concern for his neighbors. He thinks only of his OWN yard and ignores the fact that at such a small scale, what you plant to protect YOUR yard may have serious consequences for your NEIGHBOR's yard. Please THINK and TALK to your neighbors at the design stage, BEFORE you block their sun or views. I know from hard experience. I live in a passive solar house and my neighbor to the south planted a row of Ponderosa pines along his north boundary to protect against wind. When those trees get larger, they will block my view of the mountains, but more importantly, they will block the sun from my passive solar house and most of my property ALL winter! Please remember that permaculture means not only relating to the land and food animals, but, just as importantly, to your neigbors!! Designing for all is MUCH more complex than Hemenway lets on!

The best gardening book I've ever bought
For the past few months I've been reading books and learning all kinds of new things. Sustainable agriculture. Edible landscaping. Naturalistic landscaping. Agroforestry. I learned alot, but something seemed missing. And then I found Gaia's Garden. While I was reading it the first time, I kept thinking, "This is it. This is exactly what I've been looking for."

This book combines all these other concepts, adds still more, and makes it all easy to understand. There are lots of things I loved about this book. But the most important was the way Mr. Hemenway explains guilds. He gives specific examples, which you can follow pretty much exactly. But then he gives the information to go beyond his examples and create totally new guilds specifically designed for your site.

If I had to give up all my gardening books and keep only one, this is the book I'd keep.