PerenOS reasons about you and your land as one system, from what both require
PerenOS reasons from your site conditions to plant communities
What is a plant community?
A plant community is a group of species that grow together because their conditions, functions, and life cycles are compatible. The design unit in PerenOS is the community, not the individual plant.
They occupy different layers, support each other's establishment, and behave as a system over time.
How this relates to companion planting & guilds Show less
Gardening traditions name parts of this idea — companion planting names relationships between two or three species; guilds in permaculture describe a functional cluster around a central plant. Plant community is the ecological term for the whole assembly: its structure, its behaviour across seasons and years, and its relationship to site conditions.
What does climate-adaptive mean?
Climate-adaptive means every species PerenOS proposes is matched to where your site is going, not only where it is now. The climate reasoning spans 30 to 40 years.
The outputs serve the horizon you are working toward, whether it is a productive season, an established orchard, or a maturing woodland. Intermediate species may also be proposed: they perform adequately under current conditions and remain viable as conditions shift, bridging the transition.
Why proposals are site-specific Show less
This is because climate change has already altered the conditions on your site. Rainfall patterns, summer heat, frost timing, and soil moisture are no longer stable references across decades. Proposals are site-specific — PerenOS does not reason from regional averages, but from the conditions of your plot and the climate trajectory it sits within.
PerenOS reasons from the functions the planting needs to perform, then selects species capable of performing them
A planting can be asked to perform one ecological function or more, for example:
Anchoring slope & soil
Storing & releasing water
Supporting pollinators
Regenerating soil organic matter