permaculture

[Marian Dombroski <MDombros@umd.edu>]

Also called a keyhole garden, if that is more philosophically palatable.


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The mandala garden is not grounded in Buddhist philosophy at all, even
though a number of Buddhist cultures produce beautiful mandalas.  But so
do a lot of non-Buddhists in other cultures.  There are Christian
mandalas, Jewish mandalas, Goth mandalas, Wiccan mandalas and atheist
mandalas, so I think you are safe.

The mandala garden simply creates more edge, and more edge in
permaculture philosophy creates more opportunity for diversity,
interaction and symbiotic relationships.  The advantage in a community
garden would be maximizing the use of a space that's small relative to
the number of people that want to extract produce and flowers from it.
The disadvantage would be allocating and coordinating separate plots
(assuming this a typical community garden, not a communal garden) so
that the advantages of edge are preserved.  As Carrie implied, mandala
gardens may not be suitable for every place and everybody.  One works
for me, although a second garden next to it is a combination of raised
beds, rows and patches.