Wild Plant Culture: A Guide to Restoring Edible and Medicinal Native Plant Communities

by Jared Rosenbaum

Overview

Reconnect. Restore. Reciprocate. Repairing landscapes and reconnecting us to the wild plant communities around us.

Integrating restoration practices, foraging, herbalism, rewilding, and permaculture, Wild Plant Culture is a comprehensive guide to the ecological restoration of native edible and medicinal plant communities in Eastern North America.

Blending science, practice, and traditional knowledge, it makes bold connections that are actionable, innovative, and ecologically imperative for repairing both degraded landscapes and our broken cultural relationship with nature. Coverage includes:

• Understanding and engaging in mutually beneficial human-plant connections
• Techniques for observing the land's existing and potential plant communities
• Baseline monitoring, site preparation, seeding, planting, and maintaining restored areas
• Botanical fieldwork restoration stories and examples
• Detailed profiles of 209 native plants and their uses.

Both a practical guide and an evocative read that will transport you deep into the natural landscape, Wild Plant Culture is an essential toolkit for gardeners, farmers, and ecological restoration practitioners, highlighting the important role humans play in tending and mending native plant communities.

AWARDS

• SILVER | 2023 Nautilus Book Awards | Green, Restorative Practices / Sustainability
  
• HONORABLE MENTION | 2023 American Horticultural Society Book Awards

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771423694
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	11/22/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	147 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Jared Rosenbaum is a botanist, native plant grower, and ecological restoration practitioner. He and his wife run Wild Ridge Plants LLC, which grows local ecotype native plants using sustainable practices, performs botanical surveys, and provides ecological restoration planning services. Jared has extensive experience in stewardship and monitoring of natural communities. He is known as an educator in plant ecology, ecological restoration, and the cultural uses of wild plant foods and medicines. Jared is the author of two prior books on native plants, including the children's book The Puddle Garden, and maintains an active blog at wildplantculture.com. He is a Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner by the Society for Ecological Restoration. He lives in New Jersey.

Jared Rosenbaum is a botanist, native plant grower, ecological restoration practitioner, educator, blogger, author, and co-founder of Wild Ridge Plants, a native plant nursery and consulting business. He maintains an active blog at wildplantculture.com from his home in Alpha, New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Section One: Restoring Reciprocity, Sustaining Sustenance

Introduction
    The Farmer's Quandary
    Two Human Paths
    Who Is This Book For?

Chapter 1: A Different Way
    Tending the Wild
    Eat Local

Chapter 2: Plants in Relationship
    Plant Planet
        Carbon and Soils
        Temperature and Water
    Wild Plants as Food
    Wild Plants as Medicine

Chapter 3: Ecological Restoration
    Mimesis and the Reference
    Ecosystem
    Restoring Plants

Chapter 4: In Community with Nature
    Communities
    Belonging to an Ecological Community

Section Two: Learning Your Land

Chapter 5: Reading Geology, Soils, and Water
    Soils and Geology
    Water
        Plants and Hydrology

Chapter 6: Land Use History
    Land Use History and Habitat Quality
        Post-Agricultural Soils
    Natural Disturbances

Chapter 7: Reading the Story of the Land
    Historical Aerial Photos and Maps
    Analyzing the Landscape
        Indicators of a Remnant
        Indicators of Disturbed Habitats
    Making Your Own Map
    Tend or Mend
        High-Quality Sites → Tend
        Low-Quality Sites → Mend

Section Three: Plant Communities and Culturally Useful Plants

Chapter 8: Plant Communities
    Plant Community: Riparian Forests
    Plant Community: Rich Mesic Forest
    Plant Community: Upland Oak Forest
    Plant Community: Glades
    Plant Community: Meadows and Grasslands
    Plant Community: Forested Wetlands
    Plant Community: Sunny Wetlands and Shores
    Plant Community: High Elevation and Northern Forests
    Plant Community: Sandy Pine and Oak Forests
    Plant Community: The Seashore

Chapter 9: Plant Species

Section Four: Restoring Your Land

Chapter 10: The Reference Site
    How to Find a Reference Site
    Interpreting a Natural Area for Beginners

Chapter 11: Repairing Soils
    Soil Amendments
        Wood Chips
        Leaf Compost
    Mycorrhizal Fungi
        Biochar
        Decompacting Soil
    Restoring Landscape Structure
        Pit and Mound Topography
        Structural Repair Methods

Chapter 12: Vegetation Control
    Tillage
    Smothering and Solarizing
    The "Lasagna" Mulching Method
    Herbicides

Chapter 13: Burning
    Indigenous Fire
    Transitions
    Ecological Potential

Chapter 14: Deer Management and Exclusion
    Protecting Plantings from White-Tailed Deer

Chapter 15: Introducing Plant Materials
    Planting
    Seeding
    Post-Seeding Maintenance for Meadows
    Meadow Maintenance

Conclusion: A Missing Link
    Belonging to This Place

Appendix — Assessment and Monitoring Techniques
    Assessment and Monitoring
        Baseline Monitoring
    Monitoring Methods
        Photo Monitoring
        Biological Inventories
        Floristic Quality
        Assessment
        Sampling Units

Endnotes
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers

Editorial Reviews

"Jared Rosenbaum explains how our yards, farms, and cities can be optimized for abundance, diversity, and resiliency by the planting of edible, natural systems. A brilliant approach to ecological restoration simultaneous with food production!"
— Mark Shepard, author, Restoration Agriculture: Real World Permaculture for Farmers

"Jared Rosenbaum's book has arrived at the right time. Understanding how modern European agriculture is ecologically illiterate is the starting point to creating respectful, innovative ecosystems restoration worldwide. Although the plant species in this book are North American, the concepts Jared describes are globally relevant and eye-opening to anyone new to this work. Australian ecosystem restoration, known as Bushcare or Dunecare, have been happening for years. Having worked in this space, I am in full agreement with Jared's work."
— Rosemary Morrow, deep green teacher, refugee supporter, and author, Earth Restorer's Guide to Permaculture

"Rosenbaum's work is an uncommonly thorough reference book, a primer on plant ecology, restoration biology, and the medicinal and edible properties of the Mid-Atlantic plants from his region. Much more than that, it is thought-provoking, aspirational and the first chapter alone is worth the price of the book."
— Doug Tallamy, entomologist, ecologist, conservationist, and author of several books, including Bringing Nature Home

"This gorgeous and well-researched book is a delightful must-read for any person interested in restoration of native habitats in cities and beyond, the stories the land tells us, and the edible and medicinal uses embodied in the wild plants around us."
— Dr. Lena Struwe, director, Chrysler Herbarium, Rutgers University

"This guidebook holds one of many pathways to healing the ecological wounds of colonialism. Rosenbaum outlines a practice that is both revolutionary and ancient: tending native plant communities for the simultaneous benefits of human welfare and wildness. Drawing from his deep knowledge of plant ecology and restoration, Jared points us towards long-term, fulfilling relationships with the natural communities we are entrusted to care for. This message could not be more timely."
— Sam Thayer, author, The Forager's Harvest

From the Publisher