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Permaculture Design PDF Print E-mail

Want to go one step further than a simple garden bed? A permaculture inspired design can save you time, money, resources and water.  We can design your landscape to suit your combination of skill level, time and budget. We work with the soil types, solar aspect, wind directions and building features to produce attractive and multi-functional designs, which won't just feed you with minimal effort, they'll cool your house in summer, let light through in winter, while minimising the water and nutritional input requirements of your garden!  Adam, Nathan and Dan are all fully trained and experienced permaculture designers, and we like to work in pairs on each design. Here is the process:

Step One: Initial Consultancy

consultancyStep One is an initial consultancy, where you contact us to arrange a suitable time for a consultancy visit.  Two of us arrive, and after saying hello,  we:

  1. Walk around your property, observing and assessing the characteristics of the site (e.g., sun, wind, slope, soil, existing vegetation) in an unbiased way
  2. Sit down with you, and ideally everyone who lives at the site, to discuss your time, energy and financial budgets, what you would like out of the site (e.g., how much and what kinds of food) and what elements you would like included in the design, which might include:
    • Herb gardens supplying food, flavour, tea and medicine
    • Diverse and productive organic vegetable and fruit gardens
    • Compost bays and worm farms
    • Poultry systems
    • Orchards and food forests
    • Maximum efficiency watering systems including tanks
    • Fertility-enhancing tree, plant and animal systems
    • No-dig and raised garden beds using natural contours to full advantage
    • Beautiful and functional mandala and keyhole gardens
    • Ponds for growing water plants and attracting helpful creatures and birds into your garden
    • Wastewater treatment and utalisation systems (e.g., Greywater mulch pits where biologically filtered grey water irrigates fruit tree crops)
    • Native bird habitat
  3. Re-walk the site with you, sharing our preliminary thoughts on sensible design options and placement
  4. Make a basic pencil-and-paper sketch that is to scale and that lays out the basic concept design
  5. Send a brief 1-2 page follow-up report by email summarising our site analysis, design recommendations, and possible next steps

Our minimum fee for this consultancy, which typically takes between two and three hours, is $450 inc. GST during weekdays or $490 inc. GST during weekends (payable in advance or during the consultancy visit).  This fee may increase for unusually large sites.  We are finding these consultancies very popular, and currently conduct around three each week.  To save time, we ask that prior to our arriving you consider and complete a list of the things you would like to include in your design and the time you have each week to maintain the system.

Step Two: Full Design Consultancy

edible landscape designIf you choose to proceed to the next step, we can prepare a detailed design diagram that is coloured, to scale and accurately details the placement of the different design elements.  Depending on your requirements, what we deliver typically includes:

  • a detailed, coloured A3 computer-rendered design diagram and
  • a water and irrigation plan
  • a site analysis diagram, showing slope, winter and summer sun angles and prevailing winds
  • a 20-30 page design report detailing the
    • site analysis
    • site specific system recommendations
    • plant lists
    • time-stepped implementation guides
    • other relevant information

Essentially the design report is a manual tailored specifically to your garden.  We are also happy to answer questions and talk you through the implementation of the design over time.  Depending on the time required, our minimum fee for this service is an additional $960 inc. GST bringing the minimum total to $1350 inc. GST (Most designs don't exceed this price, but larger, more complex or more distant sites will cost more).

Step Three: Edible Landscape Installation

We are experienced landscapers, and work alongside trusted plumbers, builders and bricklayers to implement our designs. Contact us for a quote, which are worked out on a case-by-case basis, depending on the materials and labour required.