MANDALA GARDEN PROJECT
INSPIRA Permaculture
One of our main projects as per our plan from early 2025 is to build a double Mandala Garden. Last March and April (with the help of dear friends) we finally built this beautiful and highly efficient vegetable and fruit garden.
So what makes a Mandala Garden special, in terms of Permaculture?
To start, of course the design makes honor to its name and is a circular, patterned garden. Yet more importantly, it is designed for efficient space utilization, enhanced biodiversity, and for eventually creating a self-supporting ecosystems. As ancient mandalas, it represents unity, harmony, and interconnectedness, and it’s a meditative space where you can surround yourself by a wide variety of blooming plants.
So what are the main features of a mandala garden, in particular we used the Keyhole Mandala design:


CIRCULAR DESIGN
The core circular layout, maximizes growing spaces and allows for easier access to different areas and crops within of the garden, considering how often one needs to access and tend or replant the plants.

KEYHOLE DESIGN
Paths and plant beds for space optimization: Patterns of paths and plant beds are created within the circular shape, including 6 keyhole beds, to maximize the use of available space. They are also conceived to allow for efficient movement through the garden while minimizing the need to step on beds.
Paths are often created using materials like wood chips (as we did) or gravel, allowing for easy movement within the garden without compacting the soil, and in the case of wood chips, also retaining humidity in the soil, which is key in the Tuscan rather harsh hot Summers.
Plant beds can be raised or not. We chose not, again for preserving humidity in the soil.



BIODIVERSITY & INTERCONNECTEDNESS
The design encourages the cultivation of a variety of plants. When selecting the plants, we had to consider: our food needs, diversity, and plants that support each other’s wellbeing. In other words, we aim to create an interconnected ecosystem that supports both food production and includes other beneficial plants (like herbs and ornamentals) that keep pests away or have a symbiotic relationship with other plants.

COMPOST PILE
Composting is a crucial activity in Permaculture, reuse outputs, reduce waste, and provide nutrient-rich soil amendments. In the Mandala Garden, the center circle is a comport surrounded by Banana trees, which provide often and abundant "chop and drop" leaves, along with Borage and other plants.



SELF-SUSTAINING COMPANION PLANTING
By following the above characteristics, mandala gardens are designed to be self-sustaining, with features like symbiotic combinations, compost piles and efficient water management systems. For water, we have distributed water drop lines in concentric circles, connected to our own water well.
The design is based on permaculture principles, aiming to create a sustainable and regenerative system that mimics natural ecosystems.