PDC stands for Permaculture Design Course. This has been the standard format for permaculture training since the 1980s.

If you undertake this course you will be joining a body of many thousands of PDC graduates around the globe. The traditional PDC is 72 hours and covers various aspects of permaculture design. Holmgren Design PDCs also focus on exploring how permaculture principles can be applied to all areas of life – not just a block of land.

David Holmgren, the co-originator of the permaculture concept, is a major tutor on this PDC, leading about one third of the sessions. One of the advantages of undertaking this PDC is the amount of time you will get to interact with David, both through his formal presentations, and his informal Q&A sessions. The remainder of the sessions will be led by Beck Lowe or one of our talented guest tutors.

We realise that online study is not for everyone – we’d rather be outside in the garden away from the screen too!

We specifically run this course for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to do a PDC in their local area, or who particularly want the input from permaculture co-originator David Holmgren. We encourage you to look into your options for a local PDC before you enrol in this one.

But that said, we aim to make this PDC as comprehensive and participant-focused as possible with live interactive presentations, classes and tours. Although you won’t get to experience the fieldtrips live, you will be able to see working permaculture properties and meet the people who steward them. And you will be working with a supportive group of likeminded participants throughout.

Before you enrol, please ensure you have the time available for the classes, the required viewing/reading and for working on your designs.

Attendance at all classes is expected, but we understand that sometimes you will have to miss a session due to illness or prior commitments. We may sometimes be able to record classes with prior notice. You must attend at least 75% of classes to receive the certificate at the end.

As is traditional with PDCs, you will also be required to present a permaculture design you have developed towards the end of the course. We are quite flexible about what projects students use for this design, but most participants choose to work on their own property, or the property of someone close to them.

As well as working on your design and attending classes, you will need to find an extra hour or so each week for the required viewing/reading/activities.

We also suggest other resources each week, so if you are really keen, you can spend as long as you like in private study!

Yes, our residential Ashram PDC will be running again in March 2024. To be notified when registrations open, please email [email protected] with an expression of interest.

There are always more expressions of interest than participant spaces for our Ashram PDCs, but unfortunately we don’t have the time or energy for more than one residential PDC per year. This new offering will enable more budding permies to access the wealth of David’s and other tutors’ permaculture knowledge. It also allows those who would not be able to attend our residential PDC, due to distance or other factors, to have the PDC experience.

We understand that the AEST/AEDT time zone will not suit everyone, but we expect participants to be present at each session (with occasional absences for illness etc).

Running future online PDCs in different time zones is a possibility we are actively exploring. If you are in a different time zone and might like to do a future course, please email an EOI with your preferred time zone to [email protected].