Many people are surprised to see this element at the bottom of the list. Clay or sandy soil is very permanent after all. And this is true. But it’s so easy to modify any of it with organic material. You can even build a forest on a rock, with enough organic material. This is one of the cheapest and easiest things to modify.
Now, if you want to plant avocados in a heavy clay soil on flat land, that might be a problem, because they love drainage. Maybe choose a crop that loves heavy clay. But even that can be remedied with enough organic material, transforming heavy clay to clay loam. We’ll spend some time on these remedies in our soils section.
Scale of Permanence
This scale has been expanded by other designers, such as the team of Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeir, who have added some “invisible structure, or human element” aspects to the scale. This is interesting, because these factors may move around on the scale.
If your land is in a place where there has been civil war for decades and land access or security is highly compromised because of that, this aspect might move toward the top, just because of the difficulty of resolving that situation as an individual. Your design will be highly influenced by this factor.
You may decide to grow food in less permanent ways, or plant fruit trees in hard to access areas that are unlikely to be disturbed if you do lose the land. You may decide not to spend years building your ideal natural home. On the other hand, you may decide to do that, simply because, “why not?”
If you’re in an area where the social and economic factors are relatively benign and stable and there are ways that you can influence these for yourself, this factor may float toward the bottom.
Let’s take up some of Jacke and Toensmeier’s points and explore why they were added or changed.
In this chapter we will discuss points 6, 8, 10 and 11 below.
- Climate
- Landform
- Water
- Access and Circulation
- Vegetation and Wildlife
- Microclimate
- Buildings and Infrastructure
- Zones of Use
- Soil
- Aesthetics and Experience
- Invisible Structures