Geoff Lawton's Designing 5 acre property into paradise video

Geoff's new video is out and it is really good!

You can watch it here

Really useful information. Enjoyed this video immensely and will be applying his ideas to catching and holding water on our little plot of land.

The one thing I would find interesting is climate information and how that is reflected in the choices made. I understand he does not want to make the video seem local, but rather more universal... however, living here on the "wet coast" I suspect I would need to worry more about too much water at least some of the time. The idea of looking for property with "useless parts" was good though.

Have not seen but any methodology applied universally will have issues.Hopefully a personal relationship with the nature of ones own landscape is stressed over following a template.

Len Ovens wrote:The one thing I would find interesting is climate information and how that is reflected in the choices made. I understand he does not want to make the video seem local, but rather more universal... however, living here on the "wet coast" I suspect I would need to worry more about too much water at least some of the time. The idea of looking for property with "useless parts" was good though.

Len, definitely design is always local and site-specific. Certainly most people experience problems with water shortage rather than having too much, and even areas that experience monsoons will also experience dry periods. But if you don't need to manage water, then don't. Managing for too much water would also be a wise choice, of course.

Matt Ferrall wrote:Have not seen but any methodology applied universally will have issues.Hopefully a personal relationship with the nature of ones own landscape is stressed over following a template.

Matt, the video is actually a case study of a property Geoff designed back in 1992. It does not focus that much on the specific plants, but rather on the main frame feature. It is an excellent example that is very helpful to understand how to design a property. I highly recommend you have a look at it, it is worth the 22 min time investment.

If I secure water rights when I purchase land will I be OK doing something like this?

This is very cool, I only wish that my property had moving water! We have a very small pond, but that's all. I wonder what he would do with no running water and a different climate.

They do not allow new dams in my area of Pennsylvania ..

but that's ok I am working with my stream and creek on my 6 acres and using gravity flow and pipes to feed the water to concrete ponds that I am allowed. Right now they are mostly storage tanks but later on they will be used for aqua culture.

http://directory.ic.org/22661/Central_Pa_Mountain_farm___for_Hip_open_minded_people

but I could use a helper who is a non smoker and a believer in Jesus

One thing that struck me as Geoff worked with the existing watercourses was that there is legislation here (BC) which restricts doing *anything* near a stream, even a seasonal one.

It was very interesting to see the process of adding more and more water diversion and retention, though.

Kevin Wilson wrote:One thing that struck me as Geoff worked with the existing watercourses was that there is legislation here (BC) which restricts doing *anything* near a stream, even a seasonal one.
h.

On one of Paul's podcasts, and fromother people I have heard, building something they are allowed to build, but so badly it ends up what you wanted. Like a rainwater runoff filter that backs up to make a pond because the outlet pipe is grossly inadequate. Not saying break the law, but there is always something that can be done. It might be hard to do something that is not considered "anything", but I'd never stop scheming.


On the PDC DVD Geoff and Mollison did, Geoff talked about how his neighbor complained often. When the town official came out Geoff walked him through everything, and turned the entire situation around even though some of it was in the grey area of the local codes.

perhaps you could get some beavers to build the ponds
what could the "man" say then?

I thought the video was great. Fortunately for me, that piece of land looks pretty similar to mine. I was encouraged to find that I'm well on my way to "doing it right". Geoff's videos are well done and even if you've already begun to implement your land design, you'll pick up tips and tricks to tweek it into more abundance. They've given me the confidence to invest more into the land I have and keep me inspired to keep working on those parts that aren't in production "yet". Even though I've not done a PDC, I feel like the amount of knowledge I have is sufficient to make due with the skills and funding I do have. The videos Geoff has done have helped to confirm that for me.

I'm hoping the online PDC Geoff is doing, works out well. I'll be saving my money in hopes that he'll be doing another one in the future. Perhaps during the winter when I'd have the time to really study again. I'm implementing all the plans I made last winter now, so a winter PDC with Geoff would be the next big boost for next year.