Urban Permaculture:
Climate Resilience at Home

I was born in the 1980's, and can remember being taught that this was all we needed to do as individuals to stave off any kind of troublesome future. We kind of glazed over the "Reduce" and "Reuse" portions of the slogan, jumping straight to the "Recycle!" punchline. I think we all had this dreamy idea that, so long as our blue bins were properly sorted and we kept a little less garbage out of the landfills, everything was going to be just fine.

It took until I was 25 to find out just how ineffective recycling is. According to MIT, only 9% of all plastic has actually been recycled, while 19% has been incinerated, and the remaining 72% is out in the world, mucking up our cities, landfills, oceans, waterways, and even our own bodies.

The first and most important part of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is to REDUCE. That means we need to consume less energy when it comes to lighting, heating, transportation, manufacturing, and entertainment, as well as honing our impulse control around purchasing to first ask ourselves, "do I really even need this thing?"

After we've reduced consumption as much as we can, we REUSE the materials and products already created for as long as possible. This means repairing and maintaining vehicles, appliances, electronics, clothing, furniture, and other items for as long as possible before buying new ones, but it also means re-purposing construction materials and broken items into other things before throwing them in a bin. Everything around us had time and energy put into its creation, and we need to squeeze every drop of life from things before chucking them.

I’m not going to mansplain Pinterest, but need to mention the incredible creativity and ingenuity that often goes into upcycling projects. I’ve heard so many people over the years beam about that cool centrepiece they made for their home, about the reclaimed materials that became an addition to their house, or some wild idea they had to re-purpose what some might see as old junk in new and exciting ways.

We need more of this mindset — not just related to home efficiency renovations or landscaping, but to keep in mind the importance of building circularity into our lives, our economies, and our thinking. The embodied energy cost that comes with growth and production of food, clothing, furniture, begs us to consider how we might extend or elevate the lifespans of things before tossing them. This reduces our need for resource extraction, for polluting industry, and ultimately for how much space we need to carve out in the landfill.

I’m not going to go into depth on the range of well-researched best practices for homes and buildings.

At this point, many of you have been battered by the importance of LED lighting, proper R-value insulation, heat pumps, and electrification in general. There are multiple rebates available for these initiatives from BC Hydro and the Government of Canada, and support from other interest groups. Let me just give a big, encouraging nod to check off as many items from the list as are affordable, because they're going to pay off long term.

Now, let's get to the fun stuff.

I’ve spent the better part of 10 years learning about permaculture design and regenerative land practices, which I view as a kind of greatest hits playbook if indigenous land management strategies from around the globe with a bit of Western academic engineering perspective layered on top.

It's an incredible tool-set for designing agricultural systems, but also for community management, process innovation, and holistic thinking in general. Pictured above are permaculture’s twelve core design principles, and I encourage everyone to take a bit of time reading up on them. Combined, they define the boundaries for a cognitive sandbox in which circular economics, donut economics, and sustainable development thrive.

For this article, we're going to keep things simple and focus on four main areas to support healthy landscapes and ecosystems while protecting our homes and communities from some of the impact of climate change.

For this article, we're going to stick to four main focus areas:

• Water and Snow (or however much snow we get on Vancouver Island)

• Sun and Wind (amplification and mitigation at the right times of year)

• Vegetation (native species, food and medicine producers, biodiversity support)

• Integration with the broader landscape (organic and constructed)

But first, a big ol’ disclaimer.

What I’m illustrating below is NOT my copy + paste recommendation for every residential property. This is an example of how one might tackle a holistic landscape design, with notes on how they might better serve the needs of ourselves and the broader ecosystems we're connected to. Please take this with a grain of salt, understand that we're simplifying a lot, and follow through to the end.

Let’s assume the example property is in or near Nanaimo, BC. The landscape has a gentle slope descending to the south, an existing detached house properly oriented for seasonal solar gain, front and back yards, and a fair amount of lawn. This kind of site is exposed to the elements, low in biodiversity, and requires regular upkeep and irrigation to remain looking the way it does. It's also giving next to nothing back in return.

The first and most important thing we can do for this landscape is to hydrate it, because as you might already know, water is the basis for life on our planet. We can do this by making a subtle alteration to the shape of the land itself, starting with a small natural pond or rain garden near the upper end of the property.

We’ll need to guide any overflow of water, and the best way to do that is to move it across the landscape, back and forth, giving it time to sink into the soil. Let's do this by digging a channel and filling it with river rocks, woody debris, or a mix of the two. That way, we haven't created a giant pothole for ourselves to trip into, while still providing a channel. Adding a second pond or rain garden further along gives water a second point to sink in, followed by a corresponding overflow path moving off the property (more on that in a bit.)

Now that we’ve adjusted our land to capture, slow, and sink water into the soil. Let’s move onto seasonal sun.

In the summer, the sun arcs higher in the sky, but still angles in from the south. Before ever turning on the AC (or heat pump), we can cool our home by shading it with deciduous trees (those that drop their leaves in autumn) along the southern side of the building. That way, we’ve got shade being cast in the summer helping to block out direct sun, and the leaves are gone by winter, so the heat is still welcomed in when we want it.

Now, let’s address seasonal winds.

In the winter, cold wind blows towards us mainly from the east and north - in from the water. These winds will cool our homes at a time when we’re spending a lot of energy trying to keep them warm, so how about we help ourselves out by planting evergreen trees and shrubs along the east and north sides of the property - evergreen specifically, because winter is when we need that foliage acting as a windbreak.

Jumping back to summer, hot, dusty winds tend to come at us from the west. Similar to how we blocked the sun, let’s plant deciduous trees and shrubs along the west side of the property and the house, which actually doubles to block the heat of the afternoon and intercept warm winds, as well as the dust they bring with them.

Now we have our water flow and a loose planting plan, let’s get into specifics about what to plant and why.

The most important thing we can do is to choose more native species. The reason being, native plants have evolved in this part of the world, alongside our seasonal weather patterns. Thanks in huge part to thousands of years of indigenous stewardship, our region also happens to be full of edible and medicinal native trees, shrubs, flowers, and so much more.

For example, did you know that here in BC, we live in berry country? Plants like oval-leaf blueberries, red flowering currants, evergreen huckleberries, coastal strawberries, and serviceberries (not pictured here) all thrive without intervention — and I for one am not against having more free berries in my backyard.

Alongside a bulk of native plantings, I’d encourage a few orchard and kitchen garden staples. Fruit trees like apples, pears, cherries, mulberries, and figs don’t pose much of a threat of being invasive, most of which offering plenty to our native wildlife, plus helping build local food security. Herbs like rosemary and thyme are incredible for supporting pollinators, grow with next to no tending, and save us having to buy them at the grocery store.

There are so many options within these two categories that not only fit our climate, but help support local biodiversity. Native plants specifically have evolved alongside our climate, but also our regional wildlife including pollinators like bees and butterflies, some of whom look to native species exclusively for food and shelter.

The idea of buying “pest resistant” plants might seem like a savvy move to keep your garden vibrant, but can actually be harmful to the ecosystem. Plants that don’t interact with (and occasionally get nibbled by) native insects aren’t contributing to the local food web, creating a kind of green desert that wildlife can't really thrive in. This is doubly problematic when those non-edible species start taking over, as with English ivy, holly, Scotch broom, daphne, and many more.

We have the ability to help our cities become nursery grounds for endangered species and support for biodiversity at a time when the importance of these things had never been more clear, and I believe it's our duty to support native ecosystems to the best of our ability.

Back to the planting plan! When designing our water capture and direction system, we originally left it as simply “moving off the landscape”, but this needs to be addressed more intentionally.

Rather than simply direct water to the storm drain, how about we transform a patch of boulevard into a third rain garden for our catchment system, then surround it with vegetation other than turf to help cast shade, provide food, reduce upkeep, and so on?

While we’re at it, why don't we transform the whole boulevard into something that doesn’t require mowing, and offers food, medicine, and beauty to passers by? Now we're not only reducing maintenance and irrigation needs, but starting to offer something to our neighbourhood by making a few new planting choices and digging a shallow basin.

What’s more, our property and the choices we’ve made can directly help those properties around us. If our neighbour is also planting an evergreen windbreak on the east side of their yard, that means we’ve got even more shelter for ourselves, not to mention visual screening, sound buffering, and the start of an interconnected quasi-hedgerow to further support wildlife.

Communities making these kinds of retrofits can compound the benefits. More water catchment in your area means less vulnerability to drought. More shade and windbreak means more comfortable spaces to live, work, and play in. And more food and medicine-producing plants means more availability for those things, free of charge, right along your daily walk.

to wrap up, I want to touch on non-detached housing residences, because this is where many of our citizens are going to be living.

Street and yard trees do a great job buffering heat and cold, but rooftops and balconies are areas that can benefit greatly from vegetation as well. While several places (including Toronto, ON) are bringing green roof mandates into effect for all new construction, existing roof tops can still find life and purpose, so long as their condition is stable, acting as sanctuary for birds or gardens for residents.

Planter gardens and shallow beds with native wildflowers — the kind that might thrive in a meadow — can fare beautifully on rooftops, soaking up sunlight, intercepting rain before it enters stormwater systems, and helping to both regulate and insulate the spaces below. Obviously, not all roofs are suitable for garden retrofits, but it will be helpful to explore options like these as new standards for building managers and strata groups. It's one more way to support regional biodiversity, food security, and long-term climate resilience.

Written by Zack Simon

Zack is the founder of Patchwork Ecosystem. Based in Nanaimo, BC, his focus is on operational sustainability for local businesses and permaculture methodology for landscape management.

November 18, 2024