Name: Penelope Kenny
Role: Blossom tour guide
Penelope Kenny is an artist and gardener. She has worked with Craven Vale Community Orchard and is project manager for ‘Wild Bee‘, a wildlife-centred community food project that specialises in growing plants to encourage local biodiversity, based at the Stanmer Wellbeing Gardens. Penelope has attended several courses run by Brighton Permaculture Trust, including Planning and Planting a small orchard, Forest gardening and our Permaculture design course.
Name your permaculture hero?
Robert and Robyn Guyton from Riverton, in New Zealand.
Why them?
Over twenty-three years they have transformed a two-acre degraded piece of land into a thriving temperate climate food forest ecosystem of native, heritage and exotic trees, with hundreds of different kinds of plants, and birds and insects in abundance. They have fully integrated wildness into their forest garden design, working with nature rather than against it, and their philosophy is so inspiring.
Which permaculture principle do you have to remind yourself of the most?
Everything gardens, or modifies its environment.
Which permaculture principle is always popping up in unlikely places?
Creatively use and respond to change.
Best example of permaculture in action?
La Ferme Biologique du Bec Hellouin in Normandy, France. In 2006 Charles and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer decided, with little experience, to become low impact farmers; growing food regeneratively, without mechanisation or chemicals and in harmony with nature. The farm is now an established example of permaculture in action and is the source of several scientific studies showing that it’s possible to make a sustainable living in the region by growing food using permaculture techniques. Their market garden is incredibly abundant and the design is breathtakingly beautiful.