Hi William,
I may have missed your point so let me know. I can tell you what I did back in about 1976 on my first major foray into what now is called
permaculture and
hugelkultur (back then it was...well the way it had always been done so I guess you would call it "traditional.")
Besides the "mounds" for the garden (what we called it) I took all the organic material from clearing 4 acres that could not be turned into timber frames, lumber for projects, basket making supplies, fire
wood, etc. and chopped it all int 1 meter lengths. The
root balls of
trees got yanked out of the ground and set
side by side (stump facing into the property-roots out) as the start of all this. Then laying down in front of the stump side, I started mounding this organic matter, then
compost. Then dug up "starts" of wild
rose and planted these 0.5 meters apart on top of this mound, which was close to a meter high at this point.
So from the out side of the property line, garden and some animal pens, you saw a tangle of
roots (I like roots!!!) and then the wild rose grew up and over this so in some spots the new hedge was almost 3 meters high within 3 years. The goats didn't even test the confines of this type of hedge row, which I believe meets all the criteria to be called "hugelkultur." The gardens worked wonderfully as well.
Regards,
j