Design Services

Create your dream permaculture space!

With over 50 years of combined permaculture design experience, David Shaw and John Valenzuela are experts in evaluating what a landscape needs to thrive. Whether your goal is to create a low-maintenance native pollinator garden, an urban permaculture homestead including food and water abundance, or a permaculture farming enterprise, we can help!

our services

Initial Permaculture Consultation

We’ll answer questions and focus on areas of your site most important to you.
Explore your goals and what key changes you want to make through our collaboration.
Full site walk & talk to discuss and highlight needs and landscape upgrades to increase functionality and sustainability.
We’ll provide recommendations that have the least change & greatest effect.
Next Steps: If you’d like to work with us to create a full design, this is step one. Learn more about our design process in the flow chart below.

Remote Consultation

We’ll meet by phone or zoom to answer questions and focus on areas most important to you.
A great option not only for land stewardship but also project incubation and development.
Consider signing up for one-on-one mentoring if you want more regular support.

Fruit Tree Care

Fruit and nut tree pruning and training
Custom grafting
Design and installation of irrigation systems
Guidance in selecting a planting site
Help with choosing species and varieties
Troubleshooting pest & disease management
Answers to your fruit tree care questions!

Desired Outcomes

Farm and Garden Design
Whether starting an agricultural enterprise for the first time, or modifying an existing farm, we can help you add economic and social value to any size farm or garden.
Front and Back Yard Edible Landscaping
Would you like to have fruit, vegetables and flowers year round? We love to integrate rainwater catchment and storage, perennial vegetables and flowers, fruit and nut trees, as well as elegant garden structures such as pergolas, rock pathways and terraces, and bamboo trellises.

Orchard Care
Do you have overgrown fruit trees, or would you like to plant an orchard at your home, campus or business? We can help!
Home-Scale Permaculture and Homesteading
Do you need help deciding where to place swales, how to create a crop plan, or which livestock might be right for you? We can help make sustainable living easier by design.

meet the team

JOHN VALENZUELA
Principle Designer

John Valenzuela is a horticulturist, consultant, and permaculture educator. Living in Hawai’i for 15 years, he studied and practiced tropical permaculture while teaching throughout the Islands. He has been a lead permaculture design course teacher at the Bullock Family Homestead in Orcas Island, Washington, for 10 years, also having taught in Costa Rica and throughout urban and rural California. His special interests are home gardens, plant propagation, rare fruit, food forests, agroforestry, ethnobotany, and native ecosystems.

DAVID SHAW
Principle Designer

David Shaw is a permaculture designer, educator, facilitator, farmer, and musician living in Santa Cruz, California. David has been teaching sustainable living at UC Santa Cruz since 2004. David completed the Farm Apprenticeship at the UCSC Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems and holds a MS in Integrative Eco Social Design from Gaia University. In order to meet the challenges of today, he is creating an urban farm and inter-generational learning center that fosters hands-on farm and wilderness skills, cultural competence, social entrepreneurship, and collective action.