Why the Fernmount Food Forest can look overgrown at times.

The percentage of nursery and soil improving trees and shrubs can be as high as 95% when a food forest is first established, gradually reducing as food bearing trees and plants mature. This excellent, recent video clearly describes the layers of planting: canopy; understory, bushes and shrubs; herbaceous; and root layers.

Permaculture Zones applied to the Fernmount Food Forest

Aloe Vera in Zone 1

On a large property it might be easier to designate clearly the various zone related to permaculture principles. On the one acre (0.4 hectare) land of The Fernmount Food Forest zones tend to blur. Our Zone 4 area is tiny and we don't have a Zone 5 with original native bush. 

However, we are surrounded by patches of native forest and situated near the Tarkeeth Forest, part native timber plantation and part almost original forest so we regularly see bandicoots, goannas, pythons, Black, Brown and Tree snakes, lizards and plenty of native birds.