How do you actually think about your garden long-term?

I’ve been practicing permaculture for about 10 years now — managing water (rainwater, filtration), soil, and trying to build something resilient over time.

What I keep running into is that reality is much more complex than most “planning methods”.

Plant relationships evolve, soil changes year after year, and what works one season doesn’t always repeat.

So I’m curious how you approach this in practice.

Do you try to design your garden as a long-term system, or do you mostly adapt year by year based on what happens?

Personally, I’ve found it quite difficult to keep a clear mental model over multiple seasons.

Because of that, I started building a small tool for myself to explore these interactions over time.

I’m not sure yet if it actually reflects real-world thinking, so I’d really value your perspective before going further.

If it’s relevant, I can share what I’m working on and get your feedback.

Bit of both honestly. I started out trying to plan everything on paper but the garden had other ideas. Now I do a rough layout for the permanent stuff, trees and perennials mostly, and let the annuals fill in around them based on what actually worked the year before. The soil thing is real though, what grew brilliantly in one spot three years ago sometimes just stops performing there. I've stopped fighting it and just move things around.