Garden Design: Grand Herb Double Spiral

The herb spiral is a staple of Permaculture design.  I have had some ideas on how to put my own unique twists on it.  I would very much have liked to actually make one, but it is clear at this point that is never going to happen.  I still want to work out the design, and I will be posting it to this blog as my permanent public record.  Instead of just posting the finished design, I will post the elements as I go.  This will give some insight into my design process and reasons for my choices.  The design will not be explicitly Permaculture but will certainly follow the ethics of Earth Care, People Care, and Surplus Return.  I am retaining copyright on direct quotations of this design, requiring proper attribution and linkage, but strongly encourage any and all derivative efforts, especially actually making one.

One of the motivations for the herb spiral is to create different microclimates so different herbs can thrive under different conditions.  This is usually done at least in part by using different elevations; otherwise, you really have more of an herb circle than an herb spiral.  This presents a question: where do you get the material to raise the spiral?  As long as the spiral is small, this is easily answered, but as it gets larger, it gets to be a problem.  My solution is to create an equally sized spiral that is sunken, that will provide most if not all the material needed to raise the first spiral.  Aesthetically, for the sake of balance, the two spirals should go in opposite directions, clockwise and counterclockwise.  Which goes which way is a bit arbitrary and probably should depend on site conditions; since I don't have a site I'm implementing it on, I will just say the elevated spiral is counterclockwise.

One thing the alternate spiraling does is visually suggest the yin/yang symbol. 

Elevated and sunken suggest that thematically, so I am going to run with that.  In particular, another pair of opposites is land and water.  So the sunken spiral becomes a pond.  This opens up a lot of possibilities for plant choices not found in traditional herb spirals.  Different wetland and pond plants do thrive in areas with different depths of water, so the spiral still is useful, even if it is no longer so visible because of the water.  One part of the yin/yang symbol I am incorporating explicitly is the yin-in-yang and yang-in-yin elements.  In this context, that translates to a fountain at the top of the spiral and an island at the center of the pond.  The details will be worked out later.

So that gives the motivation and basic form of the Grand Herb Double Spiral.  The next thing to work out is scales, but I will save that for another post.

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