Plant Partners by Jessica Walliser

Plant Partners
by Jessica Walliser

ISBN-13: 9781635861334
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Released: December 22nd 2020


Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Companion planting has a long history of use by gardeners, but the explanation of why it works has been filled with folklore and conjecture. Plant Partners delivers a research-based rationale for this ever-popular growing technique, offering dozens of ways you can use scientifically tested plant partnerships to benefit your whole garden. Through an enhanced understanding of how plants interact with and influence each other, this guide suggests specific plant combinations that improve soil health and weed control, decrease pest damage, and increase biodiversity, resulting in real and measurable impacts in the garden.


My Review:
Plant Partners is a very informative book about garden plant pairings that help improve the yield and health of your harvest crops. The author talked about cover crops, living mulches, using allelopathy to combat weeds, plants that can be used as living trellises, plants that can be used to lure pests away from harvest crops, plants that help suppress disease in their plant partners, plants that attract beneficial insects, and plants that bring in more pollinators to the garden for an increased crop. She focused on plant pairings that have been studied at universities and such for their effectiveness.

She also talked about related issues, like no-till gardening or studies suggesting the reasons behind why these plant partners work well. The many pictures usually showed how the plants can be planted near each other (interplanted or planted in alternating rows). Her description of how to implement these plant partnerships (when to plant, where to plant, etc.) was also clear to me. Overall, I was so impressed with this book and its usefulness for a home gardener that I bought a physical copy because I'll be referring to it often. We're going to try some living mulch this year along with a couple of the plant partners that were suggested to bring in beneficial insects. I'd highly recommend this book to home gardeners.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.