This information is additional to what you can see on the Reading the Landscape page.
This course is based on Patrick’s recent book, The Living Landscape, itself the result of a lifetime spent in the countryside and twenty years of careful observations. 
In fact many of the examples used in the book come from the course venue itself, Ragmans Lane Farm. It’s a landscape he knows well as he has spent a great deal of time there over the years teaching permaculture courses. These parts of the book come alive as you step into them for real with Patrick as your guide.
Subjects covered include:
-
introduction to landscape reading
-
how to identify native trees
-
what wild plants can tell us about the soil
-
what we can learn from the shapes of trees
-
identifying the signs of wild animals
-
different kinds of landscape: farmland, woodland, moorland, and urban
-
hedgerows
-
the effect of microclimates
-
how landscapes change through natural succession
-
the history of the landscape
There is a balance between outdoor and indoor sessions. Outdoors you can experience the landscape first hand, while the indoor sessions give a wider view of the subject including landscapes from all over the country, mainly through slide shows. By the end of the weekend you will be able to start reading the landscape around your home with a new depth of understanding.
Participants from other European countries have found the course perfectly relevant to their home areas. Although there’s an element of local uniqueness in landscape reading, the principles which govern the interactions between soil, climate, plants, animals and people are universal.
