Integrated Forest Gardening: The Complete Guide to Polycultures and Plant Guilds in Permaculture Systems

Very informative and easy to follow

Very informative for anyone interested in permaculture design. so much information about each species of plants so valuable especially to the novice but also for experienced gardeners that might not know this information.See Geoff Lawton interviewing him on a video on Geoff Lawton.com where he really elaborates on permaculture design and programs on the computer for this.Must read for planning food forests.

I got through 75 pages and lost interest - in a subject that I really like. Perhaps I will pick it up again and find the last chapters better, but what I read has really been said so much better elsewhere (ex. Dave Jacke).

If you are interesting in starting a food Forrest big or small this is the book for you.

Despite having a lot of interesting and useful information, I found Integrated Forest Gardening unorganized and not comprehensive on any specific topic or system. I had high hopes of learning from the book, but have been disappointed after several attempts. It may be, as the back cover contends, the most comprehensive book on putting together plant guilds, but still it falls short of being instructive on the subject.Much of the content is background on the basic considerations for planning plantings (e.g., studying one’s biome, observation, insect and animal interactions, layers of a food forest). Eventually, it goes on to profile specific plants (e.g., oak trees, comfrey) from a permaculture perspective, but in a seemingly random and often anecdotal way. The polyculture case studies at the end lack context (“Why would a professional or hobbyist plant this regime?”) and don’t go into detail about the interactions between specific plants.The book does present a structure and an approach to planning polycultures, but I wouldn’t buy the book for that.The book’s prose is solid — not all authors do that well, and so I appreciate it. But topics can vary widely from one paragraph to the next. Sections vary greatly in length and detail (11 pages on oaks, followed by two pages on pines, with only a brief aside on pines’ acidifying effect on soil), seemingly depending on the authors’ knowledge of a topic.Having read many permaculture books recently, it’s hard to see where this book fits and who it’s for. For example, Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Designer’s Manual is too technical and theoretical for the casual reader, and so one can turn to Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden for specific guidance on applying permaculture principles to a home garden. I tried to read Integrated Forest Gardening before I took my permaculture design course and found it too theoretical, and when I tried to read it after my PDC I found it redundant.Also, it wasn’t an issue for me since I live in the U.S., but it’s very helpful to be explicit about what biome, region, and country the author is writing from as well as about. While the theory of plant guilds may work the same in temperate zones, the tropics, or deserts, I would imagine readers on other continents would be frustrated by not being familiar with the plants profiled in the book.I don’t wish to slam the authors, but I do hope to give some feedback in hopes of improving dialog for the sake of helping people learn this vital information. There are some exceptional permaculturalists in the world, many of whom have been compelled to write books because…I don’t know…that’s what the others are doing? There are recreational/inspirational books, there are reference books, there are design/systems manuals…Integrated Forest Gardening is a little bit of all these things, but not enough so in any one category that I’ll keep it on my bookshelf. Fingers crossed for the second edition!