About the Project
The Macdonald Showcase Permaculture Garden is a project by the McGill Permaculture Club and Christopher Wrobel MSc Agr '09, funded by the Sustainability Projects Fund.
The garden site consists of a quarter of an acre plot at the Farm Centre of the Macdonald Campus of McGill University in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. We want to transform this unused area into a permaculture garden that will serve as a demonstration site of permaculture techniques and principles. This project aims to raise awareness and educate about permaculture by serving as an example of a productive, diverse ecosystem that can be studied and used for research. It is also a learning experience in practical applications of permaculture, that will hopefully serve as a resource for others looking to start their own projects.
The project was started by Chris Wrobel in the fall of 2016, and he approached Audrey Wagner, the president and founder of the McGill Permaculture Club with the idea. They applied to the Sustainability Projects Fund and the project was approved in the spring of 2017. That spring, a group of McGill students took the Permaculture Design Certification Course with teacher Graham Calder, founder of P3 Permaculture. The garden was designed in collaboration with P3 and students from the course as an extra-curricular project. Work on the site began in May of 2017 with Ella Martin, a McGill student who also took the PDC, as Garden Coordinator. Audrey is now taking over the position of Garden Coordinator for the fall 2017 semester.
The Project Team
Audrey Constance Wagner
Project Leader,
Garden Coordinator Fall 2017
Christopher Wrobel, MSc
Financial Manager
Ella Martin
Garden Coordinator Summer 2017
Project Partners
Sustainability Projects Fund
P3 Permaculture
McGill Permaculture Club
Special Thanks to:
Paul Meldrum (Farm Manager), Mike Bleho (Horticulture Centre), Macdonald Student-Run Ecological Gardens, P3 Permaculture, Evan Buckiewicz, Susan Smith, Mathieu Roberge & all our fantastic volunteers!
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