Circles

Hugh asked about the reasons for using a mandala. In The Permaculture Home Garden, Linda Woodrow gives several explanations:

• the circles require less path than rectangular beds of the same area
• you can reach several areas from a single spot (for planting, weeding, etc)
• the design neatly allows for permanently planted areas (in the edge guild - the one metre strip around the outside of the mandala, and in the centre circle) and areas that are regularly worked over by the chooks and then replanted (the six outer circles)
• the chook dome has a circular base, so it makes sense for the whole thing to have an overall circular shape.

However, having said all that, the friend who introduced me to the system is a straight-line sort of bloke, and he created a polypipe and wire chook pen with a square base, and set up a system with a series of squares instead, and it worked beautifully!

Hugh also asked about the size. The mandala is about 15 metres in diameter, made up of:

• the 1-metre edge guild on each side of the mandala
• three circles (one on each side and one in the centre), of nearly 4 metres each
• the 0.5-metre path on each side of the inner circle.

Comments

[Tulipwood]

I have the Woodrow book and plan to implement her mandala design. I've enthusiastically devoured your blog. Thank you. Do you know of any other blogs out there using this plan that I can read about? I live in Sth East Qld.

[Donna]

Hi Denise, I was wondering if you still had the instructions for the geodesic dome(s), Hell Creek seems to have disappeared??

[Hugh]

Thanks very much for the information, Denise. Due to the size and shape of our back yard we're now considering using the circular keyhole design but spread irregularly around the garden, rather than arranged in a circle. The space not taken up by circles will be for perennial plants (and the path). I really like the idea of the circular beds in combination with the dome, it seems like a very practical solution.