Master Quote: Toby Hemenway – 03/03/18

Source:

"We usually think of design as the process of figuring out what goes where: “We’ll put the blueberries here and the path there.” But note that planning, which is the “what goes where” step, is only one of the five phases of the design process. The other steps are just as critical in a successful design. It’s similar to painting a room: Wielding a wet brush is the part we think of as “painting,” but it’s less than half the work of getting a room of a different color. It’s easy to forget, as we pick those color chips, about emptying the room, washing the walls, filling and sanding nail holes, taping trim, and reassembling the room afterward. But if you omit any of those steps, you’ll wind up with something between a lackluster paint job and Jackson Pollock gone mad. Design is like that, although most of the steps are more enjoyable than washing walls. So be forewarned: Only a small portion of good design is figuring out where the pieces go. Don’t be impatient or give the other steps short shrift."

~Toby Hemenway

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture - Second Edition - 2009

Chapter 3: Designing the Ecological Garden

Subsection: The Ecological Design Process