Mycorrhizal fungi have been waiting a long time for people to recognize just how important they are to the making of dynamic soils. These microscopic organisms partner with the root systems of approximately 95 percent of the plants on Earth, and they sequester carbon in much more meaningful ways than human “carbon offsets” will ever achieve. Pick up a handful of old-growth forest soil and you are holding 26 miles of threadlike fungal mycelia, if it could be stretched it out in a straight line. Most of these soil fungi are mycorrhizal, supporting plant health in elegant and sophisticated ways. The boost to green immune function in plants and community-wide networking turns out to be the true basis of ecosystem resiliency. A profound intelligence exists in the underground nutrient exchange between fungi and plant roots, which in turn determines the nutrient density of the foods we grow and eat. Exploring the science of symbiotic fungi in layman’s terms, holistic farmer Michael Phillips (author of The Holistic Orchard and The Apple Grower) sets the stage for practical applications across the landscape. The real impetus behind no-till farming, gardening with mulches, cover cropping, digging with broadforks, shallow cultivation, forest-edge orcharding, and everything related to permaculture is to help the plants and fungi to prosper ... which means we prosper as well. Building soil structure and fertility that lasts for ages results only once we comprehend the nondisturbance principle. As Phillips says, “What a grower understands, a grower will do.” Mycorrhizal Planet abounds with insights into “fungal consciousness” and offers practical, regenerative techniques that are pertinent to gardeners, landscapers, orchardists, foresters, and farmers. Phillips’ fungal acumen will resonate with everyone who is fascinated with the unseen workings of nature and concerned about maintaining and restoring the health of our soils, our climate, and the quality of life on Earth for generations to come.

Finding the right body, bath, and hair products can be a daunting task, and trying to pick out the best option in a sea of labels with ingredients you’re not sure how to pronounce is never easy. However, with the help of Janice Cox and her book, Natural Beauty from the Garden, finding the right products to fit your needs is not only easy but fun!

In No-Waste Organic Gardening, author Shawna Coronado guides you toward a more sustainable landscape with dozens of tips, tricks, and solutions that save you time and money—all while saving the planet, too! A revision of Shawna's previous title,101 Organic Gardening Hacks, this new book tackles waste-reducing gardening in a clever, accessible way.

A lush green lawn is one of the great pleasures of the natural world, whether it’s right outside your front door or on a majestic fairway at a legendary golf course. But anyone who has tried to grow the perfect lawn the conventional way knows it requires an endless cycle of watering and applying synthetic fertilizers and toxic chemical pesticides that cost a lot of money and kill all the life in the soil, on the surface, and on the grass. Fortunately, there’s a better way. Organic lawn care is not only healthier for the environment, it’s actually cheaper and less water-intensive, whether you’re managing a small yard or acres of turf.

In Organic Lawn Care: Growing Grass the Natural Way, Howard Garrett takes you step-by-step through creating and maintaining turf organically. He begins with the soil, showing you how to establish a healthy habitat for grass. Then he discusses a variety of turfgrasses, including Bermudagrass, bluegrass, buffalograss, fescue, ryegrass, St. Augustine, and zoysia. Garrett explains in detail how to establish and maintain a lawn, including planting, mowing, watering, fertilizing, composting, and managing weeds and pests. And he offers alternatives to lawn grasses and turf, describing the situations in which they might be your best choice.

Follow the program in Organic Lawn Care, and don’t be surprised when your water bill drops dramatically and your lawn or golf course is the best-looking one around.

The largest edible fruit native to the United States tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango. The trees are an organic grower’s dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered.

In Pawpaw (a 2016 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in the Writing & Literature category), author Andrew Moore explores the past, present, and future of this unique fruit, traveling from the Ozarks to Monticello; canoeing the lower Mississippi in search of wild fruit; drinking pawpaw beer in Durham, North Carolina; tracking down lost cultivars in Appalachian hollers; and helping out during harvest season in a Maryland orchard. Along the way, he gathers pawpaw lore and knowledge not only from the plant breeders and horticulturists working to bring pawpaws into the mainstream (including Neal Peterson, known in pawpaw circles as the fruit’s own “Johnny Pawpawseed”), but also regular folks who remember eating them in the woods as kids, but haven’t had one in more than 50 years.

Whether you're a first-time homeowner, dedicated gardener, or landscape professional, if you're gardening on the Gulf Coast, you need Howard Garrett's Plants for Houston and the Gulf Coast. Garrett is one of Texas's top organic gardening experts, and gardeners rely on him for accurate, sensible advice about what to plant and how to maintain healthy yards and landscapes without synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides. In Plants for Houston and the Gulf Coast, Garrett presents nearly 400 plants, both native and adapted, that grow well in Southeast Texas.

Like all of Howard Garrett's books, Plants for Houston and the Gulf Coast is loaded with indispensable gardening information:

• Nearly 400 trees, shrubs, groundcovers and vines, annuals and perennials, and grasses
• 400 full-color, close-up photos of the plants
• Expert information about each plant's appearance, growing requirements, landscape uses, potential problems, and other interesting facts
• Precise, easy-to-follow instructions about how to design a garden, prepare the soil, install trees and other plants, grow grass and control weeds, and maintain the landscape and control pests
• A detailed gardening calendar for Southeast Texas that lists specific plants to plant and maintenance tasks to perform each month

No other book currently available provides such extensive and reliable information for Texas Gulf Coast gardeners.

Are some plants aphrodisiacs, or is that just a myth? Garden expert and plant detective Helen Yoest takes us on a romp through history, lore and ethnobotany to find out how 50 of these plants got their "hot" reputation - and what modern science has to say about it. Discover which common garden plants and favorite edibles have that "something extra," and why. Plants With Benefits is filled with lush photography, growing tips, and recipes for preparing teas, potions and tasty treats for your pleasurable use.

Want to do your part in helping your local pollinators flourish? Pollinator Friendly Gardening makes it easy. Are you interested in growing a naturally healthy garden? How about making sure your local environment helps bees, butterflies, and birds survive and thrive? If you are a beekeeper, are you looking for the ideal plants to keep your colony happy? Pollinators such as monarch butterflies and bees are under threat, and more and more gardeners want to do all they can to create a hospitable space for them. That's where Pollinator Friendly Gardening comes in. It identifies the most visible and beloved pollinators: bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, as well as some more unlikely candidates such as ants, wasps, and beetles. It then explains the intriguing synergy between plants and pollinators. This vital information makes it a unique sourcebook to share the ways that anyone can make a yard a more friendly place for pollinators. Plant selection, hardscape choices, habitat building (both natural and manmade), and growing practices that give pollinators their best chance in the garden are all covered in detail. Plant lists organized by category, helpful tips, and expert spotlights make it a fun and easy book to read too.

Jessi Bloom, the bestselling author of Free-Range Chicken Gardens and an ecological landscape designer, and permaculture expert Dave Boehnlein explain the basic principles and ethics of permaculture, show the entire design process from land assessment to the completed master plan, and offer detailed information on the plants, water, waste, energy, shelter, food, animals, and structures that make up the garden.