the ‘drying day’ and permaculture principles

For a notoriously unhousewifely person, I’ll admit to one unmitigated housework pleasure – drying laundry on a good old-fashioned clothes hoist. Watch it effortlessly harness wind and solar energy! Towels are drying well with winter sunshine and a bit of breeze.

Strong memories of hanging washing in our suburban backyard, on the retractable clothesline that ‘improved’ our backyard at one stage, able to stretch the width of the yard. Now I have an old-fashioned hoist. None of this retracting or hiding it away in the back corner of a suburban yard – something almost every garden design I’ve seen extols.

But the sight of billowing sheets, gently rippling clothes, and a slowly spinning hoist is a lovely thing. Why hide it away? Why not think of it as an ever-changing kinetic sculpture, an eye-catching centrepiece? Or a cheerful gracenote in the gardenscape?

My hoist is at the centre of my design, the focus of Zone 1 planning. There are practical considerations – ensuring even low summer sun can reach it uninmpeded, and winds, from the northeast in summer but more especially from the southeast in winter, can reach it, even while parts of the surrounding garden need protecting from the full brunt of those winds.

Principles of placement mandate that not only is it good so encouragingly close to the back door, inside which the washing machine is tucked, but it creates a frequently visited area, a place from which to observe. I rarely come back empty handed from putting out the washing, even if it’s just a handful of mint to make a pot of mint tea.

At the moment, jonquils and snowdrops have started their winter growth below, and broccoli is ready to pick in the veg bed beside it. There are plans for pumpkins – hardy low-spreading things that won’t tempt the rabbits, wallabies and roos – to grow beneath it. Or perhaps vigorous greens such as rocket (which seems uneaten where it’s self-sown nearby, even though there’s no shortage of animals feeding alongside).

Principles of observation come into play with laundry. Reading the weather becomes a comforting imperative when it’s in the homely terms of recognising a good ‘drying day’. The day becomes one of careful attention – to sun, wind, cloud, rain – recognising the point when the air becomes moist again. Patterns and good planning come into play too – a rhythm of washing, pegging out, collecting, of timing a sequence of loads, and benefits in early starts.

I wonder how my hoist might affect or interact with the surrounding environment. At the moment I've focussed on negatives - the need to leave room around it, nothing growing too close or too tall in the vicinity - but I'm sure it could be a positive as well. Perhaps it could be a structure to support temporary shading? Or create a slightly moister microclimate as that washing dries?

I’ve been experimented with my pegging pattern to reflect the changing angle of the sun: in summer the longer garments are pinned to the outside, the high sun penetrating down between the wires; in winter, the small garments are to the outside, to obstruct the more direct rays as little as possible. In winter, there’s an effort to avoid folded over double layers that dry more slowly, with parallel wires used to drape, and jeans and undies pegged not quite at the side seams, so they gape forward a little. Have even wondered whether light and dark loads could be pegged out at strategically different times. Perhaps the warmth-absorbing darks have a better chance of extra drying as the sun weakens?

And in the interest of both laziness and energy-conservation, it’s worth lingering over the laundry, shaking out crushed fabrics, stretching items gently into shape, smoothing out hems and facings, pegging where resulting wrinkles will be least obvious (underarms are good) or most useful (at fold lines of tea towels), and avoiding pegging where it will stretch and distort.

For if I love laundry, I hate - with a passion - ironing.