Our Permaculture Design Work
Since 2018, Matt has seen nearly 50 clients. He is grateful to have the chance to bring our experience to serve you and the land that you love.
We are currently looking to work with a small number of clients for 2025 in eastern or central North Carolina and southwest Virginia.
We are especially seeking to work with people who may be interested in committing to work together for a full year, as this leads to the best results.
This can be life-changing work, so the more you make a place for it in your life, the deeper it will root!
One-time consultations are still available depending on our workload. Please reach out if interested.
What to Expect When We Work Together
- We start with a free 30 minute call to get to know each other and see if we’re a good fit to work together.
- From there, we have a 4-hour visit and learn as much as we can about the land and the people who tend it. Then, together, we find the next best steps to take. We look for steps that support both the land’s long-term regeneration and give you a way to begin the transformation now.
- After each visit, we offer custom follow-up design work based on your needs. These can be summaries, plant lists, resource lists, concept sketches, or whatever you need to thrive.
- In some cases, we also offer installation support for part of the design. For clients with limited time, this can be a great way to get things moving in the right direction.
- In between visits, we are there to support enacting those steps with our skills & guidance via email or scheduled calls.
- We keep working with you through the seasons via 1 or more seasonal visits to help you and the land continue to evolve together and connect you to support resources, workshops, and community.
- You will have a totally renewed and enlivened relationship with tending the land you live with and ten thousand beautiful things we can’t possibly anticipate will happen.
Ways to Work With Us
Four Season Permaculture Design Support
For those who can do it, this is the strongest way to work together. It is a big commitment to the land that gives you the support to make real change.
Permaculture takes time. Engaging with us for a full year means you will have the support you need to see real transformation.
What You Receive:
- During our first visit, 1-hour Holistic Goal Setting session to clarify your vision
- 4 seasonal 4-hour Permaculture Design site visits
- Custom design work (e.g. sketches, plant lists, care guides, etc.) after each visit
- Monthly 60-minute support video calls
- 20% discount (from our hourly rate) on any additional design and site work
- 20% discount on any in-person or virtual class attendance
- A steady ally to lean on in your Permaculture journey
- Getting to see your land begin to transform significantly
We are confident that with a full year of our guidance, you will be walking in harmony with the land on a path to seeing your Permaculture goals realized.
Please contact us about pricing.
Single Permaculture Design Visit
As we’re able to, we offer a limited number of one-time Permaculture Design visits. A single visit can be enough to meet the needs of some people.
What You Receive:
- 4-hour Permaculture Design site visit
- 4-hours of custom design work (e.g. sketches, plant lists, care guides, etc.)
- One scheduled 60-minute follow-up call a month later to support the design
- Clear next steps and help with long-term vision for the land
- Confidence to continue working with the land in the best way possible
Cost: $400 + small fee for travel based on location (see below)
Shorter Remote Follow-Up Visit
For people who we have worked with on-site at least once, we offer a shorter remote video call “visit.”
Video visits are two hours in length and can include optional design work at an hourly rate.
Cost: $100 + hourly rate for any additional design work
Food Forest Design and Installation
For those who want a Food Forest and don’t have the time to install it themselves, we now offer full food forest design and installation! Please see our Food Forest services.
Custom Consultation and Hourly Help
In addition to Permaculture design work, we offer consultation work specifically to support in-depth mentoring to learn to live off-grid. To talk about possible arrangements and pricing for this, contact us.
Pricing
We recognize these are very difficult times for many. We charge the lowest rate that allows our business to be financially sustainable. Thank you for your support. It allows us to share this deeply needed art.
- Our current rate is $50 an hour.
- We will always let you know in advance if we need additional time based on work or materials you’ve requested.
- We ask for a small fee for travel based on how close you are to one of our two central locations (Chapel Hill, NC and Floyd, VA).
- If you are far from our areas and there are other local Permaculture designers to work with, that could save you money. Please see map below.
- We are also open to some remote consulations for people we have already visited at least once. These can be less than 3 hours.
- If these rates do not work for you, we recommend attending one of our Permaculture design workshops which are sliding scale and can give you a deep knowledge of Permaculture to apply on your own.
Travel Distance Fee
Zone 0 – No fee for travel – Within 40 miles of Matt’s home in Floyd, VA.
Zone 1 (Red): $25 per visit – Close to either Floyd, VA or our second “home base” in Chapel Hill, NC
Zone 2 (Yellow): $50 per visit
Zone 3: (Blue): $75 per visit
Zone 4 (Outside these areas): Contact us to discuss pricing.
More on Working Together
Additional hourly help is available by arrangement.
Other than for our food forest design+installs, we don’t usually do full installation but one or more of the visits can involve working together to help you learn how to do something like plant trees, dig earthworks, set up solar, and so on.
We also sometimes set up an initial part of the design (like some first raised beds) or, if needed, can step in to help with tasks like fencing or removal of existing vegetation.
In many cases, we can provide special implementation help, like creating earthworks with an excavator, planting the first stages of a forest garden, or other specialized tasks.
Our ultimate goal of this work is to leave you feeling confident and on the right path to work with the land yourself. Like a lot of Permaculture designers, we have moved away from drawing up a big master plan and delivering it to you to have to follow (you can read more about why here). What we will do is make sure that after every session, you have everything you need to take the next best steps to keep moving towards your goals.
Our visits are also to help you learn to see the patterns of water, soil, animals, and so on on your own land. No one can know more about your land than you and the other people who live there! …but we can be of tremendous help as as guides along the way. Some clients have enjoyed us teaching them about the wild plants or mushrooms they can forage on their land and even enjoyed a salad we prepared from the wild!
Ready to Work Together?
…and, check out our upcoming Permaculture workshops.
