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  • From: <permed@nor.com.au>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Mandala gardens
  • Date: Wed, 25 Jul 01 08:24:32 -0000


>>> Could someone tell me to what extent has the use of Mandala Gardens,
Keyhole
>> Gardens and Herb Spirals contributed to the home gardeners food production
in
>> Australia?

Any bodies guess - but I do know there are an awful lot of mandala
gardens in the suburbs of Australia and many other countries.
I found the concept of the mandala garden helped break through the
reservations of many people against growing vegies in the garden
especially with regards to labour and aesthetics. I was quite amazed at
the response to my little Mandala Garden Booklet and the video produced
by Mandala Productions.
I wrote the 36 page booklet (originally printed 1990) to meet the demand
for a simple start to home food production and introduction to backyard
Pc. Not an academic work, it was written in simple language that a ten
year old can understand. The booklet & video have inspired a lot of
people to BEGIN gardening, and am constantly meeting or being contacted
by people thanking me for presenting it in such an easy to understand and
put-into-practice way in private backyards, in schools etc. Some years
ago a visitor from Cuba came here to meet me and greeted me like a long
lost friend - he promptly pulled out his photo album full of piccies of
dozens of mandala gardens in Cuba made using the book & video. Someone in
Japan has translated the book and I've had a request for permission by
someone else to translate it into Spanish.
Working with tribal Aboriginals in the Northern Territory, they related
immediated to the mandala garden design, especially the women - it
resonates perfectly with their art patterns. One of the told me told me
the women in her tribe plant seeds of the wild tomato in a keyhole - step
off the track, jab holes in the soil in a semi circle around their feet,
drop the seeds in and stamp them in with one foot. An ancient concept....

I self-published 2 small print runs (totalling 5,000) of the book and
have been out of stock for over a year but orders keep coming in -
unforunately I don't have the funds to reprint again unless someone can
sponsor it or forward me a modest loan.

By the way, I don't have a mandala garden here at Djanbung. I have an
aversion to dogmas and specific design features have the potential to
become dogmatised - I meet too many people who think you cant do Pc
without having a swale, mandala garden and herb spiral. But before
Djanbung, when I was renting in suburbia, I made a mandala garden in
every backyard I rented and surprisingly most of them survived to be
continued by subsequent tennants.
So I think the mandala garden can be claimed as a modest success for
introducing many people, not only in Australia, to pc and the joys of
home food production :-)
Robyn Francis

Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre
home to:
Permaculture Education
ERDA Institute Trust
Nimbin Eco-Village Project Office
Robyn Francis - permaculture designer & educator
PO Box 379, Nimbin NSW 2480 Australia
Ph 02-6689 1755 Fax 02-6689 1225
permed@nor.com.au www.earthwise.org.au




  • Re: Mandala gardens, permed, 07/25/2001

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