<div class="page plain article green CUST_font_112 pid_126151 page-126151"> <div class="background"> </div> <article> <header> <div class="container"> <h1> Design from Patterns to Details </h1> <div class="summary"> <p><strong>“Can’t see the forest for the trees”</strong></p> </div> <p class="byline">Deb Hart-Serafini</p> </div><!--container--> </header> <section> <div class="container"> <img src="/uploads/575ac93d29d26.png" class="main_image"> <p><strong>Zone Map of my Raleigh urban permaculture garden 0.37 acre</strong></p><p isrender="true">Permaculture is, first and foremost, a design science. Before we establish any projects, we create plans using the sector and zone system. The sectors tell us what basic patterns we need to consider such as sun, wind, fire, water, herbicide drift, to name a few. The influences on your site will be unique. The zones help us decide where to place features. The zones represent the amount of attention and management your site will get.</p><p isrender="true">Zone 0: your home. You might have an indoor greenhouse or houseplants; perhaps, you start seedlings inside.</p><p isrender="true">Zone 1: is the area closest to your home. Here you want to place the features you use most often. Common features are compost bins, kitchen gardens, and rain water barrels.</p><p isrender="true">Zone 2: is the area where you place larger features that might be visited less frequently such as orchards, chicken coops and annual crops.</p><p isrender="true">Zone 3: would be farmland where larger crops are grown and green cover crops.</p><p>Zone 4: is a semi-wild area with little management where you might forage for mushrooms and useful plants. </p><p>Zone 5: This is the unmanaged, wild area. You might have a buffered zone around your site where it is completely wild. This might be used for hunting.</p><p>Your site may not have all the zones. Every site is unique and it depends on your climate and location, whether urban or rural and the size of your property. The zone concept gives a tool to use to help in planning the most effective placement of the features on your property. After planning and taking the natural features of your land into account, you can continue to design the details. </p> </div><!--container--> </section> </article> </div><!-- page-->