Permaculture gardening thus aims to create an enduring place, a habitation for human and non-human alike. This is not a quick process, and it may indeed involve hauling hundreds of pounds of limestone. Yet it promises a landscape not just prettied up and made a bit more fruitful, but restored to the sort of health it ought to have. I am unlikely to achieve that promise in my lifetime, in my place. (I am nowhere close to it now.) But the vision entices me still.

The first essay in my new project is out now