‘Year round function and sense of place” are some of our primary objectives when designing a survival garden landscape. Choosing the right plants; those that will thrive, provide color, texture, fruits, berries and ensure nourishment for pollinators and wildlife, is crucial to successful year round function and sense of place planning.
There are many readily available pulp planting guides to help choose plants but most are overly simplified and way too generic. Many I read, group bloom and fruiting time into an oversimplified broad seasonal format; Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
Plants usually bloom when they want to bloom though due to varying microclimate conditions. Fruits and vegetables often respond to locality influences, especially the presence of lack thereof of pollinators, air and water quality and other variables.
Because local site conditions can fluctuate widely in the same apartment complex, neighborhood, townhome community or rural zip code, good landscape and garden design should be based on an intimate knowledge of site specific bio-geo-climatologic systematics. Simply put, local bio-geo-climatologic systematics is 'local ecology - what is actually there on the land, patio or balcony'.
One can generally follow the pulp planting guides and expect a moderately average result but ultimately, for the most productive and visually pleasing garden a designer must tailor final plans based on first hand understanding of the location.
In technical terns, when developing a landscape design input variables must be valid. The designer must understand sites are complex systems. The complex ecosystem concept applies to condo balconies just as much as it applies to large land tracts. This is where a designer using generic planting information can miss important plant selection and infrastructure criteria.
As with any model, the Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO) concept applies also to permaculture and survival garden planning. Using ready made pulp landscape lists during the planning stages will provide you with plant choices that may work. But over time, regular walks through your neighborhood will best contribute to an in-depth, first hand knowledge of those plants growing well in your locality and ultimately ensure a productive and pleasing garden.
I learn something new or see plants behaving in a manner never witnessed before on a regular basis. This is another reason for the garden designer to take ongoing, regular outdoor walkabouts. An insightful landscape designer will want to know a site and understand how plants will behave on the site over long periods of time, usually for a minimum of one complete year – ( i.e. at least 365 days, preferably longer). For instance, I know much about the elderberry plant, Sambucus nigra, from propagating to harvesting and using all parts of the plant. But without my daily ginko walk photos and notes on my iphone it is easy for me to forget just how fast and tall elderberry can grow.
What is a ginko walk? Isn't ginko really spelled 'ginkgo'? We'll discuss those questions shortly.
We all are familiar with the adage, 'right tree right place'. Yet many people install plants in a spot based on acquisition size in the nursery pot. I see this happening all the time with parking lot landscapes. Evergreen live oaks are beautiful fifteen foot tall trees in fifty gallons pots yet in a matter of a decade these trees can be pushing up asphalt and cracking concrete in their search for adequate root space.
Right now some of our friends have a holly tree in their front yard that has grown so large the roots may be pushing into their foundation and concrete driveway. But when it was planted it was probably no more than eight feet tall.
Back to the elderberry. We love elderberry for many reasons. Elderberry is the perfect urban heat island effect mitigation plant because it shades in the summer and allows solar gain in the winter. Of course there are numerous other benefits to have elderberry growing in your spot too, such as; berries, pollinators, medicine, drink, flowers, wildlife and more. Elderberry grows fast. Sometimes I forget just how fast elderberry grows!
Here is a photo of an elderberry taken in April. We've trimmed the shrub/tree back to the top of the four foot tall chain link fence. The plant is obviously a bit weedy looking but we love weeds too.
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| Florida Permaculture, Pruned April elderberry |
Next is a photo of the elderberry taken in June, just three months later. Now the shrub is approaching twenty feet tall.
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| Florida Permaculture, June elderberry shrub is now twenty feet in height |
This huge difference in height can seriously impact surrounding gardens and structures. But because I see the elderberry on a daily basis I never really notice the incremental growth, even considering the speed with which the plant shoots up.
However referring back to my ginko walk notes and photos the changes become obvious.
Regular ginko walks are a useful and documentable way to verify your knowledge of plants you add to plans.
The most successful site landscape and permaculture garden designs will be developed over time; they will be those having plant selection and landscaping principles verified and validated by comparing design to those plants growing, blooming and thriving in proposed site vicinity.
Granted, a one year (full seasonal) site study is time consuming, unwieldy and expensive. It is also possible that landscapes and permaculture gardens can be designed and installed using generic planting data that will turn out as planned. So why not just go with the pulp planting guide?
I've seen some quite expensive landscape and garden projects go awry and even eventually demolished because time was of the essence and the pulp printed plant list was not actually field validated. Take the elderberry for instance. I forgot at first how fast this plant grows, but after double checking (validation) I know from my ginko walk notes not to plant elderberry around plants that need plenty of sunshine for within a matter of months elderberry would shade out all surrounding species.
Regular ginko walks are a 'best' solution hack to plant selection questions, and prevent GIGO during landscape design and plant selection decisions.
But what really is a 'Ginko Walk?' First of all the term 'ginko' as in ginko walk is spelled differently than the ginkgo in ginkgo tree, Gingko biloba. I find the coincidence charming and actually appropriate though. 'Ginko, 吟行 is a Japanese word translated often to mean 'poetry walk' or 'singing steps' ('gin', 吟 and 'ko', 行). Japanese poetry tradition relies on walks in nature, or ginko walks, for inspiration in creating verse. A ginko walk is an outdoor hike where the walker forages for nature information to create poetry with.
I am a big short verse poetry fan. Haiku poetry originates around the themes of; nature, outdoors, seasons of the year, wildlife, plants and an array of natural elements. Haiku is a brief snapshot of something in the surrounding ecosystem, a thoughtful analysis of an ecological event (with a twist of course). In this sense haiku is nature documentation.
For inspiration, writers hike through the outdoors, foraging, observing what they sense is going on around them in the real world, in the preset time. As a foraging activity ginko walks help accumulate knowledge about local nature. Foraging for ideas to create poetry is quite similar to exploring your site for an understanding of what plants will grows best in your permaculture design. Rather than learn about your surroundings from a planting brochure you can learn so much more from regular ginko walks. Ginko walks provide real time input about; plants that grow successfully in your vicinity, bloom seasons and duration, colors, hues and textures plants share, soil compositions, sunlight exposure and many other ecosystem variables potentially influencing your garden to be.
First hand experience of which plants work best, along with observations of where and when and other real time data, provide a solid basis on which you can build your garden design. Ginko walks are an exercise in foraging for information, and most revealing when conducted over extended periods of time.
It is possible too you may even experience a 'ginko walk ginkgo tree' encounter, if ginkgo trees grow in your neighborhood.
Use your ginko walks to forage for valuable garden and landscape design variables. Once your ginko walk inspired designs and installations are complete the final product will be much more successful than any plan derived from pamphlet planting lists.
Ginko walks benefit not only garden success but also the health of the participants. We all know regular hikes and strolls through nature have been shown to benefit human health and reduce stress levels.
Real time foraged data entails much more than just a recording of plant types. Importantly, when one takes the time to get to know their plot, over the course of a year, documenting light levels, rainfall and wind impacts and other relevant factors, they are also rewarded with an intimate relationship between the end result garden and themselves. This closeness to the garden's life pulse provides as much benefit to we humans as do the resulting plant fiber, food and medicine produce.
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| Florida Permaculture, Good Designs Based on Comprehensive Site Understanding |
The human-plant bond building concept is much like creating a piece of art versus buying a piece of art. The artwork you create is a heirloom worthy of pride because of the amount of time and energy spent creating the work. The purchased piece, though it may be lovely is much more impersonal and not a true reflection of creative spirit. A close relationship with the natural world, facilitated by regular amounts of time spent over the seasons outdoors, builds deep understandings between designer and garden.
It is interesting to note as an aside, many land development regulatory agencies will actually require a year long site survey when considering threatened and endangered species so as to ensure confirmation of the presence of a particular species. Some endangered plants are difficult to recognize except when in bloom. Often these endangered plants may bloom only for a few weeks during the year. Year long ginko walks or field surveys can provide presence validation.
A one year site surveillance period does not mean cultivating and planting can't occur right away, but rather it is the significant infrastructure design that should be delayed until the designer or owner is thoroughly familiar with important seasonal fluctuations. Go ahead with those yummy eggplant, pumpkins, cherry tomatoes and flowers in early stages of design; plant away. In fact, a fresh flush of garden plants can be inspiring and get all outdoors even more. The more time we spend outdoors on our site the more we will learn about our landscape design requirements.
Unfortunately, with climate change, reduced water levels and unexpected hydrologic cycles, and increased CO2 levels possibly discriminating against C4 plants like many asters and landscape grasses, we cannot anymore blindly assume bloom times for any plants, even those we’ve used reliably for decades.
Flux conditions quickly outdate pulp informational lists. Because everything in our universe is constantly changing, including the local ecosystem in which your yoyo garden exists, relying on generic bloom or fruiting charts is simply not the best way to ensure garden success. Don't get me wrong, the cumulative experience of local gardeners can be invaluable. You just can't beat hands on, personal experience when it comes to designing infrastructure and then selecting plants to grow in your garden.
But if you want to reliably hit the moving target with your plant design try this bit of advice:
Start going for Ginko walks. Always carry camera journal and pencil, or your smart phone with a camera. Always carry a water bottle with filtered water. Consider carrying a walking stick to beat away the mosquitoes and to avoid tripping.
Do three Ginko walks each week for an entire year across your proposed project site, be it a balcony, patio, yard, rooftop or farm. Better yet, do a ginko walk a day and note what you see, hear, smell and feel.
Carry a local plant identification guide and identify every blooming plant you come across on each ginko walk. Record when blooming starts, the size of the plant, how long the bloom persists and when blooming ends. Plant identification guides (or a recommendation for a good one) are usually available through your regional native plant society. Many times native plant societies will also be a good source for invasive exotic plant identification literature too.
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| Florida Permaculture; Ginko Walk Checklist |
Record as much secondary information about the site as possible, including hydrologic, climatic, wind, light and land use. Jot down, sketch out or photograph blooms, blossoms, fruit, seed production, foliage and as much other information relating to how, what, why, when and where the plants you encounter on your ginko walks are interacting with their surround ecosystems.
Over time the data you gather while ginko walk foraging will begin to paint a picture of what plants will do best on your balcony, patio, yard or ranch.
Sketch out and create your own personal diagrams of how you envision site using crayons, colored pencils or even a computer program.
I believe there are no truly constant permaculture principles. We live in an ever-changing universe. The great beauty of taking ginko walks is that they make me feel like I am staying abreast and learning new growing principles each day; CEUs in real time for free. While books and blog posts like these quickly become outdated and dusty, walks through your outdoor spaces bring fresh air, fresh ideas, new discoveries and weave adaptable understanding into our relationship with nature.
Learning to look at plants and wildflowers in your surroundings, not in the sense of a regional list but in terms of ongoing ecological flux, has many benefits. I guarantee that if you approach the intricacies of hues, colors and textures in plant and permaculture ecosystem design from a ginkgo walk perspective, your garden will become a year round producing, functional work of stunning garden art.
Finally, I'd like to share on of my short verse poems:
cool beach morning fog
gooey round white splatters mark
osprey nest snag
Best, Kevin.
