The Polyculture Project - Regenerative Landscape Designs - Carla Blackmar, Oxford, Ohio, United States

It's been a great experience running our Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course where we cover how to Design, Build and Manage Polycultures for Landscapes, Gardens, and Farms. It's particularly rewarding getting to know the participants and their projects from all over the world and watching their ideas and designs grow and develop throughout the course and finally be presented to the group. With permission, we'll be sharing some of the final designs from the course with you over the next few months. This week, we're presenting a design from Carla Blackmar based on the development of an outdoor classroom of an elementary school in Ohio, US. 

Kramer Elementary School, Oxford Ohio - Regenerative Site Design by Carla Blackmar

The risks of indoor spread of COVID-19 in school settings have exposed the degree to which many US communities have neglected the potential of outdoor public space.  My design re-imagines an underutilized elementary school property in small-town Ohio, with a focus on making inviting outdoor spaces for learning while also working to address ecological challenges including habitat loss due to invasive plants and deforestation.  I have tried to focus on low-maintenance and resilient design solutions, attempting a design that can be maintained largely by machine with a focus on edible native trees such as paw paw, persimmon, oak and hickory.  While this project is unlikely to be built, the principles gained in the course and through the creation of this design will be applied to other local projects, some of which will focus on public space."

Existing and Historic Conditions

Site Constraints

• Water: poor soils on top of slope means water runs off instead of soaking in. Water is in wrong place for food forest.
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• Soils: Possible construction debris/ compaction during construction have resulted in poor soils
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• Economic: School district has no funding for this project, would need to be paid
• for with outside $
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• Deer: very high deer population will make it difficult to “beat them” to theharvest in the forest. Fencing is prohibitively expensive.
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• Social: past outdoor education projects on-site have been abandoned. 

Site Goals and Designs

Food Forest Plan Detail

Native Food Forest and Compost Area

Outdoor Classroom Plan Detail

Final Site Images

If you would like to get in touch with Carla you can reach her at cablackpot@gmail.com. 

Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course

Want to learn how to design, build and manage regenerative landscapes? Join us on our Regenerative Landscape Design - Online Interactive Course.

The course includes 20 lessons, with 20 hours of one-to-one mentoring/consultancy, drawn from over 20 years of experience designing, implementing and managing polyculture gardens, farms, food forests and regenerative landscapes across a variety of climate zones.

Regenerative Landscape Design Online Course

We look forward to providing you with the confidence, inspiration, and opportunity to design, build and manage landscapes that produce food and other resources for humans while enhancing biodiversity.

You can access all of the course material without the one-to-one tutoring by becoming a paid annual subscriber to our Substack, which grants you access to the Bloom Room for just 70 USD per year. Subscribe below to join now.

I look forward to having you join us!

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