The first edition of Gaia's Garden sparked the imagination of America's home gardeners, introducing permaculture's central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. As Tony Hemenway demonstrates, it's satisfying and easy to create a backyard ecosystem by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions, including: building and maintaining soil fertillity and structure, catching and conserving water in the landscape, providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds and animals, growing an edible 'forest' that yields seasonal fruits, nuts and other foods. This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful.