Understanding and implementing permaculture zones on your property can be a game changer for designing effective layouts that will streamline workflow and maximize your space.
What are Permaculture Zones?
Bill Mollison, the creator of permaculture, breaks down any property into five zones. These zones help to dictate where different features of your landscape should be located and how they should work together to achieve maximum efficiency and a net gain of energy throughout the space.
Considering these zones can be surprisingly useful when designing the layout of any area in which you usually spend time. Take your kitchen, for example: when you first move into a house and you unpack your kitchen supplies, you are, perhaps unknowingly, creating zones to help determine where you should store your things. Items that get used frequently such as spatulas and silverware will be placed in easy-to-access spots such as a crock on the countertop or in the most central drawer. Rarely used items such as a large roasting pan or obscure kitchen appliances will get placed in the cabinets farthest from the oven and sink. In some cases such as ours, they may even be stored on shelves in the basement! The goal of using zones in your design is to locate each item based on the frequency with which it is needed or used. In the garden, components that require frequent maintenance or attention should be placed closest to the house for easy access. Features that only need infrequent attention should be placed in the farther zones. The energy flows between and among these different zones will also need to be considered, as well as the inputs required for each of their needs.
Zone 1
Zone 1 is the area closest to the house and it includes the house itself (the house is known as Zone 0). This zone should comprise of anything that needs to be accessed on a daily basis. I believe an outdoor living space in this zone is a super important component to good design. You will want to have immediate access to a spot where you can enjoy your garden with family and friends, thus encouraging you to spend time eating, reading, relaxing and whatever you love to do, outside of your home. This zone will also include a variety of other features depending on the way you want to set up your property. Home energy inputs will most likely be located here. Solar panels would be installed on top of the home, wood piles would be stacked here for a woodstove. If your house is close to your neighbors, privacy screens could be added using plants or structures. Rainwater catchment systems will be installed in Zone 1 to capture runoff from roofs, driveways, etc. Annual garden beds will also be located here since they require regular attention throughout the growing season. I always plant my salad greens and herbs near the kitchen door so I can run out quickly while I am preparing a meal and grab what I need!
Zone 1 is the main hub for everything that happens around your property. Sheds, garages, greenhouses and other related structures can be in this zone too! The goal is to minimize the number of steps it takes to complete a task, thus maximizing your time for other activities. You may also consider locating small scale versions of larger components near the home. For example, we have a large 3-bay compost system near the chickens at the end of our yard. Each time I take out the kitchen scraps, I have to walk to the far corner of our property and the result is that kitchen waste tends to pile up on the counter. This year I plan to install a small composting area in Zone 1 for easy access. Then once every so often, I can haul a load out of the small compost down to the large compost pile.
Zone 2
The second zone is an area just outside of Zone 1. It should include anything that requires occasional attention such as orchard trees and small livestock. Sheds, garages and greenhouses could also be located here. On a farm this zone may look somewhat different than in a small backyard. Zone 2 will require some level of water management through the use of mulch, swales and/or irrigation. A farm may have fruit trees in rows mixed with ground cover and other beneficial species. These could be kept watered using swales. A backyard may have some mulched fruit tree guilds, other intensive perennial species and small livestock animals such as chickens that will require attention multiple times per day. Trellised vines that are maintained could also be added to this zone. If you have a family with little ones, don't forget to include a space for your children to play!
Zone 3
This next zone is the third-farthest from the house and will include larger scale elements of the property. Pastures for green manures and animal feed would be found here on a farm. Barns for livestock, large water storage in the form of ponds or other retention areas, orchards, and main crop fields would be in this zone as well. In a small yard, this zone will embody the same ideas, except for on a smaller scale. Unpruned and natural trellises could be found here for a variety of edible vining and cane fruits. An addition of low-maintenance orchard trees that do not require regular pruning would be placed here as well. Rotated free-range areas for chickens or small livestock such as goats could make sense in this zone and any maincrop foods that take up larger amounts of space such as Jerusalem artichoke would be grown here. As a rule, think through the number of visits an element will require per day or per year before choosing where to place it. An apple tree only needs to be harvested once a year and pruned once a year, so planting it in Zone 3 would make more sense than Zone 1. An element such as everbearing strawberries should be grown closer to your dwelling, to avoid some potential harvests being missed.
"The golden rule is to develop the nearest area first, get it under control, and then expand the perimeter. A single perimeter will then enclose all your needs." ~Bill Mollison
Zone 4
Zone 4 is the farthest, managed zone from the house. Food forests could be grown here in a style that mimics natural forests. Coppiced trees for fuel wood can be grown in this zone, and shelter from wind/fire in the form of hedgerows can be found here. Meadows, areas for foraging, dams, large-scale livestock such as cattle, and any resource designed to mimic natural processes should be placed in Zone 4. Even if your space is limited, you should try to incorporate this zone into at least some small portion of your yard. It may be impossible to arrange your property with this zone located at the farthest point from your house. Just try to get creative. A front yard could be home to a food forest while the back contains the other three zones. The space on a driveway could even be repurposed for another use such as a greenhouse or chicken coop, thus freeing up more yard space for a small Zone 4. With permaculture, it is always the imagination of the designer that is best suited to overcome the limitations placed on us by social norms and the detrimental paradigms with which we are faced.
Zone 5
This final zone is an area of unmanaged wilderness. It serves as a storage reserve of information and knowledge that the permaculturist can learn from and apply to cultivated areas of the property. It is imperative on large properties that some portion of the land is left in its natural state. Nature is the ultimate teacher and these areas also hold information in the form of genetic and species diversity. In a small backyard, it may be much more challenging to incorporate zone 5 into the design. Strips of pollinator meadow mix could be a good trick for adding an unmanaged section to your yard, however in some cases it may be impossible to have this zone. In the case that you do not have room for zone 5, the permaculturist should make their schedule include time spent in other unmanaged areas of wilderness. By intentionally placing yourself in a natural environment and practicing your observational skills, you will learn so much more about successful ecosystems that you can then apply to your own managed systems. There is more value in this method of education than any book can teach you about gardens and the environment. You don't actually need to know the names of any of the things you observe in nature if you take time to get to know them in a personal way.
The Benefits of Using Zones
By organizing your property into zones, you will streamline your daily activities and minimize the work needed to maintain your landscape. Nature is always striving to do the least work for the greatest gain as it constantly evolves an adapts to the pressures at work on it. In the same way, we should design our properties with these zones in mind to minimize our own work and maximize our yield and enjoyment. Then, just as nature does, we should sit back and observe what is working and what can be improved. As long as we are always willing to adapt, we will experience much greater success than those who don't.