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Forest gardening is a way of working with nature which is not only productive and requires minimal maintenance, but also has fantastic environmental benefits.You don't need a forest for forest gardening. Based on the model of a healthy natural woodland, a forest garden incorporates a wide variety of useful plants, including fruit and nut trees, perennial herbs, and vegetables in vertical layers. They rarely require any weeding, digging or pest control and as plants are chosen for their beneficial effects on one another, they form their own sustainable ecosystems, offering great environmental benefits.
Written by forest gardening pioneer, Robert Hart, this comprehensive guide to forest gardening describes its principles and practice, including guidelines on how to design and maintain a forest garden, and lists of recommended species for temperate, tropical and sub-tropical climates. It also shows potential value of forest gardening for countering environmental devastation.
Hart's book beautifully describes his decades of experience gardening in the Shropshire countryside, and offers fresh ways of understanding the relationships between people and growing plants. Blending history, philosophy, anthropology, and seasoned gardening wisdom in a lucid sequence of essays,
Forest Gardening examines the pleasure of 'hands off' as well as hands-on gardening.
For gardeners who aspire to create ecological as well as beautiful gardens,
Forest Gardening will be an inspiration and a pleasure.
List of contents
Foreword by Herbert Girardet
Prologue: The Mini-forest
1. Towards a Forest Economy
2. Unity and Diversity
3. Health & Wholeness
4. Personal Pilgrimage
5. The Wenlock Edge Project
6. Plant Life: Its Infinite Potentialities
7. Design & Maintenance
8. Water and No Water
9. Stored up Sunshine: Energy Yesterday and Tomorrow
10. The Thinking Hand: Skills of the Craftsman
11. Agroforestry Against World Want
12. Green is Real
13. Where Do We Go From Here?
Epilogue: A New Twist in the Evolutionary Spiral
Appendix 1 Recommended Species: Temperate
Appendix 2 Recommended Species:
Tropical and Sub-tropical
References
Suggested further reading
Recommended suppliers in the UK
Membership organisations
Index
About the author
Robert Hart was the pioneer of Forest Gardening in the UK. His work inspired many others to pursue his vision of a more self-sufficient and vibrant community based on agroforestry techniques.
