We woke up this morning to a wintry mess offering from Mother Nature. What a perfect day to dream about fun times ahead in the garden! If you missed our first installment of Exploring Permaculture: Site Analysis (Part I), you can check it out here. Please enjoy today’s post which wraps up observations: Exploring Permaculture: Site Analysis (Part II).

Sector Analysis

In Part I, we discussed notable factors, like USDA plant hardiness zones, topography, soil, aspect, etc. that should be top of mind when assessing a site. You might think of these as first order criteria.

Today, we’ll think about some additional observable site-specific considerations, which we may deliberately incorporate into our design.

In the sector analysis diagram above, the blue arc denotes “Street Noise.” Each site comes with its unique characteristics. I want to emphasize this! I think it would be a gross oversight not to address and plan for the abutting streets/sidewalks on two sides. Car and pedestrian passers-by constantly zoom by the north side. This creates unique noise and privacy concerns.

I made a rough estimate of both the property’s winter and summer sun exposures. There are a few notable observations here:

• Taking roughly the mid-point of the Green arc, we see peak midday sun hits the southern corner of the property at nearly a 45 degree angle to the diagram. Long-story short: this are gets the most intense sun.
• The adjacent neighbor’s house partially blocks the small back porch and raised bed towards the south-west of the property.
• Limited late afternoon sun hits the very south-west corner of the property.

Existing Vegetation

So, back to the “You didn’t build that” idea. Perennials, planted years ago, dot the landscape. We could always rip everything out and start from scratch, but that would likely be the most expensive and disruptive plan of action. We’d like to take a more incremental approach.

Iris is a heavy hitter here. It dominates the main flower bed, hugs along the building and lies underneath the dogwood tree too! Good for us, it’s absolutely beautiful in the spring! I took (too many) pictures last year.

We have two rose bushes on the property, one put in before our time here and one that we planted last summer.

Beyond these two show-stoppers, we have an additional half dozen or so “unidentified” shrubs and flowers. I wouldn’t say we’re overly attached to any of them, aside from a tulip or two.

This concludes exploring permaculture site assessment. Did we miss anything? Definitely. Does this give us a solid foundation to build out our permaculture inspired urban garden? Absolutely.

Next Steps…

Site Design