The Significance of Kinship Gardening to Permaculture
by Alan Kapular

Agricultural and gardening systems are many and various. From industrial monocultures where a single species predominates–often propped up by toxic external inputs–to sustainable systems where fertility and pest management are integral, to kinship gardens where each plant is grown as an individual representative of its species, genus, family and order and where diversity is maximized, there are many possibilities from which to develop agriculture.

In the current era, with the on-going destruction of native habitats, pollution of the environment, and consolidation within the seed industry, species and life-nets are disappearing and extinction walks in our footsteps. Hence Bill Mollison and his collaborators have developed an ecological system of sustainable agriculture and development called permaculture: permanent, or perennial, agriculture and culture. A core aspect of permaculture uses combinations of plants that work together in symbiotic relationships. These "guilds" are developed in an effort to achieve on-going fertility, climate creation, weed control, increased productivity and ultimately, true sustainability. Formation of guilds is based on the casual and intense observation of natural communities of plants where one finds common themes of inhabitation. Daisies, legumes and grasses frequently cohabit.

When we walk in our neighborhoods—take a residential one for example—upon casual observation we notice a diversity of plants. In the winter, the trees with bare limbs and the trees still in leaf are distinctive and prominent. In the temperate zone, these are generally dicots and conifers, respectively. If the environment surrounding the trees is relatively undisturbed, there are many other kinds of plants and organisms. Under the black walnuts, there are grasses, borages, mints and columbines. Under the maples, there are mosses, lichens and mushrooms.

How does the concept of Kinship Gardening relate to this? Through the kinship maps, tree-of-life layouts for each of the many groups of plants, kinship gardens are organized and planted. Based on the kinship gardener's focus and bio-region, or even microclimate, the composition of every kinship garden will vary and provide a unique set of information to those developing permaculture systems in similar situations. The more we understand what will grow well in our climate, the more diverse and sustainable our agriculture will become.

While a guild might have the apparently simple composition of a daisy, a legume and a grass, there are 20,000 species of daises, 17,000 legumes and 10,000 grasses. Thus there are many possibilities for the structuring of similar guilds tailored to the permaculturist's ecosystem. This would hold true for any combination of plants that form a successful guild, from complex multi-story food and timber forests to simple companion planting strategies.

The ecological-environmental cross-section of each place on earth, the combination of temperature, sunlight, moisture, soil, wind and shade lead to a diverse set of organism solutions for permaculture. An essential resource of permaculture is the Planetary Atlas of Organisms. Kinship layouts are phylogenetic maps reflecting hereditary relationships. Kinship gardening uses these maps to organize gardens that provide examples and access to the world plant kindom resource base. (Editor's note: Kapuler used the term "kindom" as opposed to "kingdom" to emphasize the interrelated, non-hierarchical structure of the genetic diversity of life.)

In current biology, the organisms on earth form three distinct groups. The oldest are bacteria-like microbes called Archaea, the bacteria called Eubacteria and Eukaryotes, organisms with histone chromosomes, nuclei, steroidal membranes. Animals and plants are eukaryotes. So are fungi, worms, slugs, fruit flies and spiders. For every site on earth, the combinations of these creatures impacts sustainability. With many millions of kinds of microbes, mostly still unknown, and with 10-plus million species of animals, plants and fungi, the puzzle of organisms that promote fertility and sustainability is not fully understood. However, at the same time, kinship gardening that generates local gardens of adapted species, providing eye-level views of diversity, are the Rosetta stone for translating permaculture dreams of sustainable food, shelter and habitat environments into reality.

Authors Note: At the 1996 Ecofarm Conference at Asilomar in Monterrey California, I had the good fortune to meet and talk with Bill Mollison. The first thing he said to me was, "Thanks for the kinship maps of the Plant Kindom. It is an essential resource for permaculture."

Alan Kapuler retired as the Research Director for Seeds of Change in 1999. He is the founder and president of Peace Seeds.


Resources

To learn more about Kinship Gardening, see:
Gardening for the Future of the Earth by Howard Yana Shapiro Ph.D. and John Harrison.
Peace Seeds Research Journals #8 and #9.

For More on Permaculture see:
Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison with Reny Mia Slay
Permaculture Two by Bill Mollison
Permaculture, A Designer's Manual by Bill Mollison