Traditional Landscape Design vs Permaculture Landscape Design
Published 2016-12-05
Where the traditional design does meet the family’s needs, the permaculture design take a practical look at the landscape, the couple’s desires, and joins them together with harmonious interaction. Here are some of the connections:
Chicken house:
At a spot in the property where it will eventually leach nutrients down slope into the landscape.
Captures it’s own water.
Deep bedding method so the whole thing is a egg making compost generator.
Greenhouse A:
Grow food all year.
Doubles as a plant nursery.
Greenhouse B:
Heats and cools home by providing a buffer zone and convection.
Cleanses grey water.
Grows nutrient dense tropical food plants because it has a microclimate that can do that.
Adds additional living space to the home.
Orchard / Food forest:
Captures it’s own water by designing it with the slope of the landscape.
Fertilized by both chicken system and support species.
Ecosystem design to maximum yield.
Once established it is almost a zero work system.
Wilfdlife habitat.
Nature area for a sense of well being.
Real long term low maintenance food security
Garden and crops:
You garden more efficiently when you have to walk through the garden to get into the house.
Utilizes keyhole gardens with one entry/rotation point instead of rectangular garden that needs to be worked from the outside perimeter.
The darker green areas are support species that are filled with nitrogen and nutrient accumulating species as well as pollinator attractors and beneficial predatory insect attractors to aid in suppressing pests and to create wildlife habitat with an ecosystem rather than monoculture.
Vegetables washing station near home entry to maximize work efficiency that also uses the wash water to keep worm farm moist. The culling of leaves and plants from the garden go into the worm farm to feed the worms. The worm farm has a drain at the bottom so they can harvest the worm juice after each wash.
Water tanks:
Catches drinkable and irrigation water from the roof.
Pumped out with a solar powered pump.
Irrigates garden with simple low tech, low cost, efficient system.
Chicken system:
Creates low work natural fertilizer.
De-pests growing areas
De-weeds growing areas
Feeds chickens
Compost area:
Along with the chicken house it serves as a organic nutrient cycling area.
Gives quicker compost for garden needs
Feeds chickens
Store:
The city ordinances allow having a store/stand of some types to sell directly to the public.
Parking area captures run off water for food forest
Community is established with sales
Money is made
Community area:
Comfortable outside living space
outdoor cooking area
A visually and aesthetically pleasing area for the family and visitors
Meeting area
As you can see there are a lot of connections made in a permaculture design that will benefit this family, the soil, wildlife, and the environment. And this example could be used for a standard suburban lot up to around an acre or so of land. But it does not stop there. A baby boomer couple has now called upon a conventional agriculture consultant and a permaculture consultant to design their farm. This should be a show down of exciting designs and the results should be in soon.
All Comments (21)
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Thanks! This is my first permaculture video. 1. Determine North 2. Prevailing winds (passive pollination) 3. Winter sun, where to plant items that need sun. 4. Summer sun, plants that thrive in fun sun. 5. Noise, from road, neighbor’s and animals, 6. Find the slope. Use topography from highest point to the lowest. Place Chicken coop and water tanks in these areas. Chickens will saturate area from the top down and water will run from the top down using passive gravity. 7. Green house in the mid-point area requiring “skinning” in the summer 8. Attached green house to the primary quarters works to heat and cool the home. 9. A laundry room or mud porch can drain gray water out into a gray water garden. 10. Fruit and Nut tree forest passively watered and fertilized by chickens poop and rain water at the bottom of the slope.
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If possible, please make more videos like this? Drawing out potential architecture ideas. I like it a lot. Helps you to put it all into perspective.
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"Utilize their chickeness..." made my day haha
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GMOs are not really the problem, but the chemicals you need to put in food in a mass-producing economy. The science behind GMOs is brutal, but it truly is not an issue for medical reasons, but economic (monopolization of seeds) and ecological displacement. Loved the video, I am rehabilitating dead lawn in order to create a permaculturing system. Loved the inspiration. Thank you!
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It is incredibly helpful to see the two examples side by side like this! I have no knowledge at all in this area, but I do wish I could transform my garden more towards permaculture. Love it ❤️
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Some ideas are clearly great, like a second greenhouse attached to the house or having the orchard/food forest positioned at the lower part of the estate, but I am not sold on all the details. How practical are the the round raised beds? They look fancy on the plan, but I'm not sure it's completely necessary. Also, I don't think it's a good idea to make the path to the house longer than it should be, you and the guests are more likely to cut it short and go where you "shouldn't" just to get to the home quicker. That always happens to fancy paths which are long winded, they are good for relaxing walks, but not great when you are in a rush to get from A to B.
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I doubt any landscape designer would design that way. I can understand you tried to create an extreme comparison, but you can still compare without being misleading. I'm a permaculture designer myself by the way.
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Absolutely nailed it mate. I'm in the process of learning my land and design atm. 4.3ac, food forrest, livestock, farm stay and hopefully, one day and permaculture farm school.
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This video is wildly underrated. I personally wouldn’t force the clients to walk half their gardens just to get in their house 😆 but I appreciate the philosophy behind this idea.
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Sweet! Thank you for showing the drastic contrast between regenerative Permaculture and why the mess that society struggles and suffers with is actually simply degenerative design, a systemic invitation to addiction to inputs, labor and futility. It really helps me. After studying, practicing and designing Permaculture since 2001, I am still a beginner in so many ways, on a practical level. This solidifies my ideas, and inspires me to go for it here on the quarter-acre I'm designing now. Aloha, Maui Permaculture Network (MPN) -- Claire
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Nice design but I’m sure the family won’t enjoy always walking around the garden to get inside, especially when it’s raining. There should be a strait path from the car to front door in addition to the garden path.
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This is Perfect.....Exactly what I want to do for our home. Thank you so much for doing this video.
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"I hope those chickens don't die from sheer loneliness" Haha
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I need to learn more about this! This is so cool!
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you know i love the small scale stuff, im doing the same thing for the same reasons. on a side note, i made ya'll a featured channel on my site, and im doing a shout out vid for Nicholas. Appreciate all the swag you sent.
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I have had a bit of a difficult time finding a beginner's overview drawing of a permaculture design. I have a dream of creating one myself with an Earthship kind of home and am sitting down to draw and paint my fantasy home now! This is a sweet video!
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Thanks for sharing this great example of how to practice Permaculture! So effective teaching video! Thank you!
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good video thanks
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Cool method I can see my self making this design at my backyard
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Thanks for sharing this story... very inspiring... It starts with awareness and intent.. and through progressive steps, we create sustainable abundance...
