Picture your backyard as a lush garden, filled with edible flowers, bursting with fruit and berries, and carpeted with scented herbs and tangy salad greens. 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 are an integral part of the scene. Your garden tools have a slight patina of rust, because this garden requires so little maintenance. This is an ecological garden, which takes the principles of permaculture and applies them on a home scale. Key features of permaculture 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.--From publisher description.