WELCOME

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for visiting my site! My name is Mardi, and I am a Permaculturist and Certified Permaculture Designer. I am also a spoonie, or a Chronic Illness Warrior.

 

Over the last five years, I have dedicated most of my available and extra spoons to learning and cultivating my passion, knowledge, and skill set for permaculture design. It has been incredibly healing for me and is just the niche I have been searching for most of my life. When I became chronically ill in 2015, I never thought I would be in this place or doing anything like this. My life before was so focused on working and pursuing a career in social services. Once I was hit with debilitating symptoms and illness, my whole world was turned upside down, and I was forced to drop everything I had worked hard for in life.

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For years, I tried to force myself back to work, but it was a never-ending. In 2018, after one of my many surgeries, I moved to a small town and immersed myself in isolation and nature. I knew then this was what I needed for my body and mind. At this point, I was no longer gardening—something had done all my adult life—because my body could barely get me out of bed most days. My husband and I had moved just outside of town, and our home backed onto the base of a mountain. In this space, I was able to slow down, look around, and truly find the beauty in the natural world around me. I started by just sitting on my deck, watching everything move on with its life around me.

Eventually, I began going for short walks along the riverbank and my husband would drive us up and down bush roads. I knew this was where I was meant to be. The hard part, however, was that in this town, with my limited mobility, I had no community, no friends, and no family. After two years there and a lot of healing, I felt much better physically, so we decided to move back to the city where my family was, but with a completely different mindset.

 

Lucky/unlucky for us, that in December 2019, then we all know what happened in 2020: lockdown. Here I was, stuck in a city again, but near my family, with everything locked down. I had some of my energy but nowhere to go or anything to do. Then an amazing opportunity presented itself; with the lockdown came online learning and programs that were once inaccessible to a bed-bound, then house-bound person like me. I took full advantage! I enrolled in as many permaculture courses as I could from a local Permaculturist who was incredibly knowledgeable, kind, and accommodating. I began to develop a love and thirst for learning more about this different approach to gardening and living.

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What first drew me in was the simplicity of permaculture. When your body and abilities are limited, simplicity is the best thing for you. I continued to learn, I also started appreciating the lessons in permaculture for my own body as well. Permaculture teaches observation, adaptation, allowing things to flow, lessons from nature, slowing down, conserving energy, reducing outputs, and encouraging community—everything I needed to learn in my own life. It gave me a new outlook and way of thinking about everything, along with a newfound appreciation for slowing down and observing my life, my body and everything around me. By the end of 2020, after yet another major surgery, husband and I decided we to be back in the mountains. Both of us love to grow and garden—my husband and I being a fun mix of scientific, chaotic and laid back.

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We packed up our lives again and moved back to the mountains, choosing to return to where we both grew up in a small community in BC. Although, by this time, all of my family had moved away, but his family and community were still there. My husband spent three years building us our hopefully forever home, and we have spent another two years slowly developing our yard and my dream permaculture design.

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In 2025, thanks to online schools, I completed my Permaculture Design Certificate. This was a challenging feat with my ever-changing health, but it has felt amazing. Now, I want to share my teachings and knowledge with others! This site offers courses for all ability levels, combining my lived experience with the many things I have learned and continue to learn along the way. I hope to share practical knowledge to anyone who wants to learn. Along the way, I will share my own home permaculture design projects mishaps, and learnings.

Please come along for the ride!

 

Thank you to everyone who joins me, learns with me, and helps teach me along the way.