May Permie Corner

By Lorraine Sharaf

Principle 11 — Use Edges and Value the Marginal

This month’s principle, “Use Edges and Value the Marginal,” may sound like a riddle—or a cryptic instruction for enlightenment.

It isn’t. 

It’s a piece of wise advice and a practical way of seeing and cultivating our land and our lives!

Early May is its own edge, past mid-spring but not yet summer. It’s a transitional time that borrows from both winter and summer. In Bucks County, temperatures swing from T-shirt weather to winter coats and back again. At its best, spring’s warm days and cool nights create a fleeting window for locally grown foods…asparagus, tender greens, spring onions, green garlic, sugar peas, and ramps.

It’s also a busy time for cleaning, organizing, and preparing for new life. Last Sunday afternoon, I stopped gardening to watch a mama robin build her nest—repeatedly flying off in various directions and returning with her beak filled with twigs and leaves, along with bits of borrowed straw from my raised beds. She was highly focused and diligent in her construction.

What is special about spring is that it is short and unique and full of life and energy—like the edges described by this principle.

🌊 Icon: Where Two Systems Meet and Interact

“The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place.” — Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren

These transition areas or edges, also named ecotones, are zones of active exchange, where energy, water, nutrients, and living organisms move back and forth between the two ecosystems in this in-between area, making them more diverse and productive than either system alone. They provide space for foraging, nesting, pollination, and numerous underground exchanges in soil and root systems. Some examples are where forest meets meadow, air meets water, house meets garden, the base of a tree, along a fence, where the ocean meets sand. The increased diversity and productivity found at the boundaries between different ecosystems allowing species from both habitats to coexist along with unique species adapted to the transitional zone is known as the Edge Effect.

Icons for this principle vary from shorelines to layered landscapes. The icon shown in the accompanying wheel depicts three trees in profile, reflecting that same idea. 

The second half of this principle, value the marginal, brings our attention to the overlooked spaces on the periphery, just outside our focus. The narrow strip of grass set withing a sidewalk, a shaded corner, or the warmer soil beside a wall may seem irrelevant, but these in-between places often become the most productive. When we plant into marginal spaces with intention, they can become magical spaces. 

As David Holmgren says succinctly: “Don’t think you are on the right track just because it’s a well-beaten path.”

Why were Anthony Bourdain’s TV shows No Reservations and Parts Unknown so popular? Because he never stayed on the well-beaten path or took us to overvisited tourist sites. Instead, he traveled the world by exploring edges and margins. With him, we visited fish markets for chefs at 3 a.m., street-food markets and festivals in Asia, remote villages in Iceland, meals with yak herders in Bhutan, dinners in Iranian homes, and Antarctica—the driest, coldest, and windiest place on Earth—where he spent time with the scientists who lived there. And that is why we are so sad that he is gone. We must be the adventurers, at least on our yards and farms.

🌎 Examples in Nature

Walk a woodland edge, streambank, or hedgerow in May and you’ll see:

• Spring ephemerals blooming before the canopy closes
• Moisture-loving and drought-tolerant plants growing side by side along a stream
• Birds, insects, and wildlife moving along the boundaries

These transition zones support a remarkable range of life in a relatively small space.

🪴 Garden-Scale Examples

You don’t need wild lands or a farm to work with this principle. You’ll find plenty of edges and unused spaces on your own land, its size or location. Cities are brimming with edges and marginal places. Here are ways that you can begin. 

• Layer and blend: Mix plant heights and types—herbs under taller crops, flowers along borders, lettuce greens in partial shade zones.
• Use vertical edges: Trellises and pergolas create living edges in the air—perfect for cucumbers, peas, and beans.
• Plant the margins: In many gardens, the edges outperform the center. Thyme, chives, and lavender flourish along the edges.
• Use vertical edges: Trellises and pergolas create additional growing space—edges in the air—ideal for peas, beans, and cucumbers.
• Blend rather than separate: Layering plants across edges increases diversity and resilience.
• Key-Hole Garden Beds: Create more edge and easy gardening access

Work with Microclimates

Not all parts of your garden warm up at the same pace.

• Plant tender crops first in warmer edges—along stone walls, near paths, or in south-facing spots
• Use cooler edges (partial shade, lower areas) for greens that prefer milder conditions

Even a few feet can make a difference this time of year.

🌿 Designing for More Edge

Create edges intentionally to increase the edge effect:

• Asymmetrical Shapes — irregular ponds create more shoreline interactions
• Keyhole garden beds — more edge, better access
• Curved paths — longer, softer transitions
• Openings and islands — glades or tree clusters create new interfaces. Plant a grove in a field; clear a space within a forest. 

Fences are one of the most obvious and overlooked edges. Fences can block and change wind flow, sunlight patterns, and animal migrations. Like trellises, they can support a great amount of vertical bounty and microclimates. 

Even small changes—rounding a corner, adding a trellis—expand interactions.

🌊 Edges within Edges or Stacked Edges: The Layers of a Pond

  Edges aren’t just one-dimensional lines—they also exist in layers.

A tangible example is a pond, that contains multiple depth zones:

• Shallow margins support emergent plants
• Shelves host rooted aquatic plants
• Deeper water supports fish and cooler habitats

Each shift—dry to wet, shallow to deep, light to dark—is an edge. Gradual slopes and shelves create stacked edges, multiplying life within a single space.

Stacked edges aren’t limited to ponds. They show up anywhere conditions change vertically or gradually.

• A slope or hillside — moisture, sunlight, and soil depth vary from top to bottom
• Terraced gardens — each level creates its own microclimate
• The edge of a raised bed — drier at the top, more protected at the base
• A stone wall or foundation — warmer near the wall, cooler a few feet away
• Forest layers — canopy, understory, shrub, and ground layers interacting

These layered transitions create more niches for plants, insects, and soil life, expanding what a single space can support.

🍃Restoring Edges and the Margins

Not all edges and marginal areas are humming with productive growth that we value. Many are filled with invasive plants that compete with our gardens and native trees and plants. We have an old house and property that was overrun with English Ivy, covering the ground, overburdening a fence and destroying parts of a hundred-year-old wall. The masons who repaired the stone wall pulled 2-3-inch-wide vines from within the center of the wall. Don’t fret—these areas can be reclaimed. 

🌱 Permaculture Pause

Before filling up all your edges, ask: 

• What function do I want?
• What conditions already exist?
• What does this land want and need?
• Where is there an unused edge?

🚫 When This Principle Is Ignored

When edges are removed, systems become simpler—and more fragile.

We see it in:

• Uniform fields without hedgerows
• Continuous lawns
• Straightened streams
• Gardens with only neat rows

They may look tidy but support less life and require more input.

🪴 Community Edges

Edges aren’t just ecological—they’re also human.

Some of the most meaningful community spaces are those that intentionally create room at the edges where people from different backgrounds, experiences, and roles can come together around a shared purpose, such as at farmers’ markets, workshops, community gardens, and volunteering opportunities.

Like ecological edges, they bring different groups into an “unclaimed” space where intermingling is expected and welcome

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🌼 Tips for Working with Edges

• Notice where two conditions meet (sun/shade, wet/dry, wild/cultivated)
• Resist the urge to tidy your boundaries and put an edge between beds and lawn
• Add plants to underused spaces—especially edges
• Think in layers, not simply rows
• Let some areas stay a little “in between”

🌿 Start Small, Observe Often

• Try small experiments in different parts of your garden
• Notice what thrives in sun, shade, wet, or dry edges
• Let the garden teach you where things want to grow

✨ Closing Thought

In a month defined by transition, the best thing we can do is pay attention—and meet the garden where it is.