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Questions about your land or which package fits? Ask David directly.

EarthDesignLand design with David Sussberg

Backyard Food Forest Design

A planned, layered planting for one garden area of a quarter acre or less: trees, shrubs, herbs and groundcovers placed with their mature size, your water flow and your climate in mind.

Who it is for

  • Homeowners turning a lawn or side yard into a productive, low-input planting
  • Gardeners who keep buying trees without a plan for where they will fit in ten years
  • Families who want shade, fruit and habitat in one straightforward area

Questions it helps answer

  • Where will each tree sit once it reaches mature size?
  • Which part of the yard stays wet after rain, and which dries out first?
  • What can grow under and around my fruit trees instead of mown grass?
  • How do I phase planting so it is affordable over a few seasons?

What is included

  • One straightforward area / primary layout
  • 1m LiDAR terrain map when suitable coverage available (with fallback/source)
  • Average-rain hydrology map
  • Mature-scale layered food forest
  • PDF and private interactive Walkabout
  • One included one-hour virtual meeting
  • One revision included
  • Two-week delivery

Scope, conditions and pricing notes

For garden areas of ¼ acre or less. Designed area up to ¼ acre.
Conditional deliverables. When property analysis supports them, we include recommended optimal pond/swale locations, estimated cut/fill, and GNSS files. Explicitly conditional and not for engineering, survey, or permitting.
Not Included. Standalone production orchard, alley cropping, silvopasture, adaptive grazing/paddocks, equipment-aware production rows, multiple unrelated areas, major drainage/access redesign, irrigation engineering, and stamped construction documents.
Note: EarthDesign provides planning context. 3D maps and models are explicitly planning-not-survey. We do not provide engineered permitting documents, engineering sign-off, or on-site surveying.

How it works

  1. 1

    Checkout

    Check your site on this page, pay the one-time price through the existing secure checkout and receive a link to your private intake form.

  2. 2

    Intake and meeting

    Share goals, constraints and plant preferences, then book the included one-hour virtual meeting.

  3. 3

    Delivery

    The plan is delivered within two weeks after intake and the meeting are both complete, with one revision included.

Limitations to know

  • Terrain detail depends on the public elevation data available for your address; a fallback source is used and named when 1m LiDAR is not suitable.
  • Plant recommendations are a starting design. Local nursery availability, microclimate and your own observations should shape the final list.

Common questions

My yard is larger than a quarter acre. Can I still use this plan?
The designed area must be a quarter acre or less. Larger or production-scale layouts go through the Focused Food Forest and Agroforestry application instead.
Will you install the planting?
No. EarthDesign provides the plan and a meeting to walk through it. Installation is done by you or your own contractor.
Does the plan include a pond or swale?
Only when property analysis supports them, and then as conditional planning recommendations, not engineering or permitting documents.

EarthDesign is a digital design and visualization platform. Outputs are advisory; site execution, regulatory permits, and licensed professional sign-offs remain the responsibility of the client and their licensed contractors. No warranty of fitness for a particular purpose is made, expressed, or implied.

Read the full Terms of Service & Disclaimers.

Book a free 15-minute callAvailable with at least 24 hours' notice