Classical Landscape Patterns

1. Consider the region your chosen design site is located in. Does the region match any of the landscape types discussed in this section? Is your site representative of this region? Is its climate temperate (cold), tropical (hot) or desert (dry)?

Our chosen design site is typical of the Humid Landscape. The South Downs are all gentle sloping hills that start 50 miles to the west near Portsmouth and continue about another 30 miles east to Eastbourne. The climate is temperate pretty much for the entire United Kingdom not just our chosen design site, with an additional splash of coastal-type climate thrown in. The actual physical design site location is well protected from the typical coastal hazards of sand, salt and the prevailing winds as it lies on a slope facing eastwards thus being afforded protection.

2. Provide an analysis of characteristic features and design implications for your design site’s region. This should include information and design considerations for rainfall patterns (water collection, storage and distribution), hazards (wind, tsunamis, earthquake, landslides, fire) and seasonal temperatures (length of growing season, crop potential, insulation requirements).

To the bane of most English-people, we do not suffer from a lack of precipitation. It’s a rare month that we do not have a measurable amount of rainfall. The primary consideration for our design site is how to store rainfall from the wetter winters in order to supplement the drier summers. A couple of above-ground water collection devices (such as water butts) should suffice for the area of land we are designing for, supplemented by our pond which will provide water to resident mammals, birds, reptiles and insects.

We have also designed swales into our overall design in order to encourage the (heavy) rainfall to not simply runoff but to seep down through the soil layers, thus benefitting all our plants throughout the site. At this stage, we aren’t sure whether the site would benefit or in fact actually need any kind of irrigation system, we will continue to observe as the seasons change. Collection and storage for the entire site will be to the west which is on the upper part of the slope, allowing for easier transport of water down the slope.

The region doesn’t face much in the way of hazards. Some coastal erosion can take place, but this is currently mitigated by coastal defences. Our site is far enough inshore to not face this hazard and at a high enough level to avoid any potential future flooding. Our main concern on such a sloped site is soil erosion. We already plan to mitigate this by planting plenty of root stock as mentioned before to bind what remaining soil we have on our site.

“South East England combines the highest average daytime temperatures found in the British Isles with the highest sunshine averages on the British mainland. There are between 25 and 30 inches (630 and 760 mm) of rainfall; and there can be high variation of temperature between day and night. The climate of the coastal districts is strongly influenced by the sea, which, because of its tendency to warm up slower than land, can result in cooler temperatures than inland in the summer. In the autumn months, the coast sometimes has higher temperatures. Rainfall during the summer months is mainly from thunderstorms and thundery showers; from January to March the heavier rainfall is due to prevailing south-westerly frontal systems. The coast has consistently more sunshine than the inland areas: sea breezes, blowing off the sea, tend to clear any cloud from the coast.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sussex)

Our main aim is to better understand the seasonal growing cycles of all crops on our site because if we plan this into our design scheme the region offers us a 12-month growing season. We should be able to keep the site in productive use January to December regardless of the weather.

The coastal climate is hugely favourable meaning that we are only limited to our soil type and intensity of sun at this latitude in the potential for crops that we can sow, grow and eat. As long as we are sensible and we research our choices thoroughly, we should have a site full of a large variety of crops.

With the exception of the current winter which has been “the coldest in over 30 years” (according to the Met Office), we rarely get harsh winters. Our winters are on average wet and mild with additional wet. We should be aware of some of the less hardy perennials that we choose and protect them as a matter of course with mulching or simply position them close to protective cousins like trees or hedgerows. The appropriate protection strategy will be zone dependent, zones 0 and 1 being where most foodstuffs will be cultivated thus being the focus of much of our protective thinking. Although mentioned above, the amount of rainfall offers benefits from a growing perspective; it of course can cause us headaches when trying to prevent rotting of any surplus we may produce. We ironically will need to find a way to remove moisture, when all other attempts in our design seem to work in the opposite direction, to protect crops. Proper dry storage will be essential. (http://www.vegetableexpert.co.uk/how-dry-store-vegetables-grown.html)