Permaculture Planning

I'm already pretty in love with my yard & garden, but I've been taking a permaculture garden design class through the Permaculture Research Institute that is filling me with plant envy.  This class is fantastic- I get to use giant graph paper and measure every single thing in the yard (seriously.  everything.) and then dream about how I could use the space more productively.  Is there anything I like better than graph paper and productivity?  I think not.

 With the West End Garden Tour less than a month away, I have to be careful.  I'm tempted to go all extreme makeover on my yard, but I know that that's too much to handle when I'll have hundreds of people touring the garden so soon.  Plus, I don't have a crew of people working for me.  Slow and steady, Liz.

But even if I won't be doing a total overhaul, I've got to plan what I'll eventually to do make the yard more low maintenance, productive and beautiful.

So every single nice day, I've been outside working on the yard.  Every single rainy day, I've been working on my homework (a.k.a. the yard plan).

Here's my "base map".  This has every permanent structure on the property: house, garage, raised garden beds, sidewalks, trees, treehouse, etc.

The next step was to create a "bubble map" of areas by purpose or function.  Then, after finalizing the general areas of plantings, we mapped out each plant's size and shape.  On Monday we'll start choosing plants.

Except I cheated.  I didn't wait until Monday's lesson to choose plants.  I did the research early and I went to Leitner's and Linder's and bought all the fruit bearing shrubs and vines that I know I'll need for the landscape. I just couldn't help myself.  I figure there will be several phases to this project and getting in the bigger items can be the first step.  Now...where should I get 8 cubic yards of wood chips?