Observe and interact

The old saying: beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Holmgren pairs this principle with the proverb beauty is in the eye of the beholder. At first it seems an odd choice for a design rule. Its point is that we never observe neutrally. We bring our values, our training and our habits, and they decide what we notice and what we overlook.

A gardener trained to see order may see only a messy corner where a bramble thicket shelters birds and holds a bank together. A farmer who thinks of weeds as enemies may miss that a dense stand of a certain plant is telling him something about compaction or nutrients. In nature, as the principles site of Holmgren Design puts it, things are simply different rather than right or wrong. Good observation tries to suspend judgement long enough to understand what a thing does before deciding what it is worth. Holmgren brings the same attitude to fast-spreading plants in his essay Weeds or Wild Nature: look first at their work in a landscape, then at their origin.

How it looks in nature

Every living thing observes and interacts in its own way. Roots grow towards moisture and away from dry or compacted layers. Young sunflowers follow the sun from east to west during the day and turn back to the east at night; a study led by Stacey Harmer's group found that an internal clock drives this movement and that plants prevented from tracking grew less. The mature flower heads stop moving and face east, where the morning sun warms them early.

Whole plant communities respond in the same way. When soil is laid bare, pioneer plants arrive first, and which ones arrive says a great deal about the ground. A forest edge shifts with the wetter and drier years. Nothing in a living landscape acts without feedback, and permaculture asks the designer to join this exchange rather than override it.

Where the principle works in the TerraWiki

Observation is not a single technique but the start of every technique. These pages show it at work:

• Indicator plants: the plants that come up on their own are the first report on soil, water and disturbance, if one learns to read them.
• The spade test: one spade's depth of soil shows structure, roots, life and compaction better than any guess from above.
• Texture by feel: a moist ball of soil between the fingers tells sand from silt from clay in a minute.
• Soil analysis: the laboratory adds numbers to what the senses suggest, and observation tells you where to take the samples.
• Ecological succession: knowing which stage a piece of land has reached shows which plants it can carry next.
• Macchia: the Mediterranean shrubland shows, plant by plant, what thrives on dry slopes without help.
• Keyline design: P. A. Yeomans began with the shape of the land and its contours before deciding where water should go.
• Brad Lancaster: the first of his eight water-harvesting principles is long and thoughtful observation, and the last sends you back to it.

At Sa Medada

Sa Medada is a slope in Jerzu, in Ogliastra on the east side of Sardinia, with mild winters and a dry season that lasts roughly from May to September. Much of the observation begins on maps. A LiDAR wetness map shows a comparatively dry main area and moister channels along the edges. Planning at Sa Medada works from such maps, which show water paths, the course of the sun and the slope. Swales are planned; none has been built yet.

Interaction happens in small steps. The first tree, a service tree, was planted in 2024 on a very hot south-facing slope, and banana, mango, avocado, cherimoya, papaya, moringa and citrus are being trialled in the microclimate. How they cope is part of what the land is telling us. A laboratory analysis of the soil does not yet exist, and so we make no statements about its humus or nutrients until it does.

The next principle, catch and store energy, builds on what observation reveals: where the land receives more than it needs at one time of year, and where that surplus can be held for leaner months.