by Ecofilms, The Permaculture Research Institute: http://permaculturenews.org/2015/01/30/re-greening-a-mountain/
Re-Greening a Mountain video trailer. See the full version on Geofflawton.com
When Geoff Lawton says this is the best Permaculture demonstration site on the planet, then you have to stop and listen.
“Where is it exactly?” I asked, as I’ve never heard of this place. I didn’t know the Chinese were even into permaculture.
“Kadoorie Farm” he said and he insisted we go there and film. “It’s in Hong Kong on a massive mountain. The whole place has been redeveloped. You gotta see it”.
Geoff was teaching there four years ago and was blown away by what they managed to achieve. He described it as a “Permaculture Disneyland” that was very neatly manicured.
It had been completely re-vegetated into a food forest with numerous water falls, ponds, rare turtles, terraced gardens on steep slopes, a compost and biochar system, a waste-water treatment plant and wetlands and so much more. It is an amazing site that was built so far ahead of its time with an emphasis on teaching local people.
Two brothers, Lawrence and Horace Kadoorie in 1951 took on an idea to redevelop a trashed and degraded mountainside on 148 hectares with the emphasis on helping people to help themselves through training, supply of agricultural inputs and interest-free loans.
The end result of our trip is a 16 minute video you can watch on GeoffLawton.com that has Geoff as your tour guide, take you down the mountain slope, from the very top, through a forest system where the water is captured and irrigated down the steep terraced slopes, to the very bottom of the wetlands and nursery system.
Geoff stumbled across an ingenious potting system they were using with great success that he dubbed the “airpot” as it allows plant roots to grow out laterally, and not be constrained, allowing faster growth once replanted in the natural system (Nursery Quality to Tree Planting Success). Check out the video that explains it all in greater detail.
Showing posts with label Permaculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Permaculture. Show all posts
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
VIDEO: How to Create a Permaculture Design
by Ecofilms, The Permaculture Research Institute: http://permaculturenews.org/2015/01/17/how-to-create-a-permaculture-design/
Geoff’s new video on Creating Permaculture Designs, see the full version on Geofflawton.com
So you’ve always wanted to design a beautiful plant system in your garden, but baulked at the idea because, quiet honestly, you can’t tell a bean from a cactus or a legume from a walnut and don’t have the time or interest to devote to studying all this plant diversity stuff and biology bores you, but inherently inside you, you’d know that you would make a great designer.
Instinctively, you can spot a nice clump of trees together and you know you could do all this stuff if you could overcome this one small insignificant minor technical stumbling block - a lack of plant knowledge!
Well, like everything in the Internet universe, there is probably an app made for you right now. If there isn’t an app, then its time to head down to your friendly office supply stationary shop and buy yourself one of those little green plastic template thingy with a bunch of circles cut out for you that you used to have at school.
Buy that and some graph paper and a few pencils and a long tape measure, because this week’s lesson is with Permaculture Designer, Dan Halsey who swapped a career as a fashion food photographer to a full-time career as a Permaculture Designer. Dan used to photograph ice in sweet fizzy beverages. Fake ice was used as real ice melts under hot camera lights. A minor bit of useless trivia.
Anyway, Dan says, you need to overcome your lack of tree knowledge, that will always bog you down and the best way to start is by focusing on your pattern knowledge and work on your assembly of tree shapes.
Start with pattern shapes. Don’t worry what sort of trees you need for your garden design. Work on your shape clusters, from the big shapes, down. From the big Diva tree, then to the understory plants and all the way down to the tiny edging plants that create a nice aesthetic grouping. The mainframe shapes, the paths, access and water, ponds, structures and swales come first and then we pattern the landscape with our trusty little green stencil thingy and a pencil.
When it comes to filling in the small, insignificant minor details, the real biology of tree species, Dan has a database for you to enjoy - The Natural Capital™ Plant Database. You need to fill in the details.
What climate zone are you in? What size of tree are you after, the database will filter the details and offer you a spreadsheet for you to select a bunch of trees shapes that will fit your climate zone. Everything from deciduous trees to legumes are in the database. That’s the theory. The links are in the full video on GeoffLawton.com.
Watch the full 20 minute video where Geoff Lawton introduces Dan and takes takes you on a tour of his property and then explains his theory of Permaculture pattern design.
Further Reading:
The Natural Capital Plant Database
Practical Plants Database
The Natural Capital™ Plant Database
Geoff’s new video on Creating Permaculture Designs, see the full version on Geofflawton.com
So you’ve always wanted to design a beautiful plant system in your garden, but baulked at the idea because, quiet honestly, you can’t tell a bean from a cactus or a legume from a walnut and don’t have the time or interest to devote to studying all this plant diversity stuff and biology bores you, but inherently inside you, you’d know that you would make a great designer.
Instinctively, you can spot a nice clump of trees together and you know you could do all this stuff if you could overcome this one small insignificant minor technical stumbling block - a lack of plant knowledge!
Well, like everything in the Internet universe, there is probably an app made for you right now. If there isn’t an app, then its time to head down to your friendly office supply stationary shop and buy yourself one of those little green plastic template thingy with a bunch of circles cut out for you that you used to have at school.
Buy that and some graph paper and a few pencils and a long tape measure, because this week’s lesson is with Permaculture Designer, Dan Halsey who swapped a career as a fashion food photographer to a full-time career as a Permaculture Designer. Dan used to photograph ice in sweet fizzy beverages. Fake ice was used as real ice melts under hot camera lights. A minor bit of useless trivia.
Anyway, Dan says, you need to overcome your lack of tree knowledge, that will always bog you down and the best way to start is by focusing on your pattern knowledge and work on your assembly of tree shapes.
Start with pattern shapes. Don’t worry what sort of trees you need for your garden design. Work on your shape clusters, from the big shapes, down. From the big Diva tree, then to the understory plants and all the way down to the tiny edging plants that create a nice aesthetic grouping. The mainframe shapes, the paths, access and water, ponds, structures and swales come first and then we pattern the landscape with our trusty little green stencil thingy and a pencil.
When it comes to filling in the small, insignificant minor details, the real biology of tree species, Dan has a database for you to enjoy - The Natural Capital™ Plant Database. You need to fill in the details.
What climate zone are you in? What size of tree are you after, the database will filter the details and offer you a spreadsheet for you to select a bunch of trees shapes that will fit your climate zone. Everything from deciduous trees to legumes are in the database. That’s the theory. The links are in the full video on GeoffLawton.com.
Watch the full 20 minute video where Geoff Lawton introduces Dan and takes takes you on a tour of his property and then explains his theory of Permaculture pattern design.
Further Reading:
The Natural Capital Plant Database
Practical Plants Database
The Natural Capital™ Plant Database
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