by Emma Cooper

Created on: August 30, 2007   Last Updated: September 02, 2007

Permaculture is often thought of as being a type of gardening, but it is more a way of thinking about and designing sustainable lifestyles.

One of the main tools in the permaculture tool box is the idea of zoning and appropriate placement. There are 6 zones, 3 of which are particularly relevant to gardeners.

Zone 0 is the home itself. Zone 1 is the garden space immediately outside the home that can be visited everyday. It may be a street garden, a patio or simply a windowbox, but this is where you would plant the vegetables and herbs that require daily care or harvesting. A container garden would fit into this zone, as would a greenhouse.

Zone 2 is still close enough for regular visits, and in most homes is probably the back garden. Plants here can survive on their own for a couple of days - vegetable beds and soft fruit bushes would live here. This is also the place for your home composter, if it isn't in zone 1 - you need to site it somewhere close by so that you will use it.

Zone 3 is the orchard zone, where fruit trees that don't need regular attention would be sited. Or it could be that you tend an allotment or a community garden that is a little distance from your home and would be considered to be part of this zone.

Zone 4 is semi-wild, perhaps local parks and waste land where you can forage for wild nuts and berries occasionally.

And Zone 5 is wilderness, places that you can go to appreciate and observe nature's natural cycles, but where you would not intervene.

Most gardens will not be large enough to encompass zones 1-5, but the idea is to think about the relationships between different aspects of your garden and to put things in the right place. Having a tub of salad leaves and culinary herbs right outside the kitchen door means that salad and herbs are on the menu whenever you want - with no pollution from packaging and transport. The main vegetable garden can be out of sight from the house, but not too far away to just pop out and uproot some carrots for dinner. Even if you only have a tiny space for gardening, the same theory applies - putting everything in the right place concentrates your efforts and makes the garden more productive.

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