[permaculture] Philosophy behind mandala gardens

Toby Hemenway toby at patternliteracy.com
Mon Jun 6 12:25:10 EDT 2005


On 6/6/05 8:15 AM, "Michael Murphy" <MMurphy at ctsl.com> wrote:

> The mandala garden simply creates more edge,

Depends on what kind of edge you're talking about. The keyhole bed shape in
Mandala gardens minimizes the amount of path needed to access the garden
beds, so in this case, there is less edge. I'm not sure that they increase
edge over, say, rectangular raised beds. They sure pack a lot of plants in a
small space, though. One note from experience: keyholes and mandalas don't
work well on sloped land as they prevent the gardener from walking on
contour, which get tiresome. Stick to regular ol' raised beds if you're on a
slope.

Toby




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