Forest Gardening

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Another Kind of Energy or ComPost-Modernism
Jean Pain was a citizen scientist in Occitania, whose political fate has long been submerged within the French state, but whose spirit is still restive. Pain was concerned with the devastation of the Mediterranean forest by fire, a terminal process of dehumification of soils that began thousands of years ago with the introduction of grazing animals and cereal cropping. He experimented with the production of compost from brushwood thinnings. By progressive applications of this compost and careful mulching to retain moisture, Pain demonstrated and recorded in great detail that high quality vegetables could be grown without irrigation in these dry soils. He further speculated that the forest itself could he regenerated by selective use of the same material.

The Art of Garden Designing
The difference between a bush, a forest and a garden lies in the layout. That is what separates a garden from a bunch of green trees and plants. Gardens are made to look beautiful and to add to the beauty of the surroundings. The gardens have drawn admiration for years, but a wonderfully inviting garden is the result of careful garden designing.

How To Choose A Shape For Your Future Bonsai Tree
The shape or 'style' that you will choose for your bonsai will say as much about the artist (you!) as it does about the plant. First step in choosing the best suited style for your bonsai is to know the main characteristics of the existing styles; after you know all of these you must know for which style is best suited the plant; you must first evaluate the tree's strengths and weaknesses. The selection of a style is based on a series of compromises that are intended to emphasize a tree's features and minimize its defects. The choice of style may change as a tree matures over time. There are several questions that you should answer before starting: Trunk shape - is the trunk thick and upright? Does it undulate in gentle curves? Is it very twisted and crooked? Does it taper from a thick base to a thin tip or is it thin enough to bend to introduce new curves or remove undesireable ones? Cascade styles are frequently developed from trees that offer little interest in curve or taper, but are thin enough to be shaped with wire into cascading curves. Forests can be created from almost any material, so it is a very logical choice for trees that have numerous scars, little trunk taper or defects in the root system. Later, as wounds heal, tops are replaced, taper develops and surface roots mature, the trees can be separated and stand on their own as bonsai. Is the root system well developed? Do roots emerge at all points in a nice radial fashion, or is the root system one sided? Frequently in container stock there is a second root system that emerges just beneath the first as a result of uppotting from liner stock. This second root system might be better formed or more appropriate for the style in question. In general, the Formal upright style requires a well developed, radial root system.

Forest gardening

Forest gardening (also known as 3-Dimensional Gardening) is a food production and land management system based on replicating woodland edge ecosystems, substituting trees (such as fruit or nut trees), bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables which have yields directly useful to humankind.

In part based on the model of the Keralan 'home gardens', forest gardening has been pionered by the late Robert Hart, whose one eighth of an acre plot at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire has been described as possibly the only fully developed working permaculture site in the UK.

Robert began the project over thirty years ago with the intention of providing a healthy and therapuetic environment for himself and his brother Lacon, born with severe learning disabilities.

Starting as relatively conventional smallholders, Robert soon discovered that maintaining large annual vegetable beds, rearing livestock and taking care of an orchard were tasks beyond their strength. However, he also observed that a small bed of perennial vegetables and herbs they had planted up was looking after itself with little or no intervention. Furthermore, these plants provided interesting and unusual additions to the diet, as well as seeming to promote health and vigour in both body and mind.

Noting the maxim of Hippocrates to "make food your medicine and medicine your food", Robert adopted a vegan, 90% raw food diet. He also began to examine the interactions and relationships that take place between plants in natural systems, particularly in woodland, the climax ecosystem of a cool temperate region such as the British Isles. This led him to evolve the concept of the "Forest Garden": Based on the observation that the natural forest can be divided into distinct layers or "storeys", he developed an existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible landscape consisting of seven dimensions;

Forest gardening (also known as 3-Dimensional Gardening) is a food production and land management system based on replicating woodland edge ecosystems, substituting trees (such as fruit or nut trees), bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables which have yields directly useful to humankind. In part based on the model of the Keralan 'home gardens', forest gardening has been pionered by the late Robert Hart, whose one eighth of an acre plot at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire has been described as possibly the only fully developed working permaculture site in the UK. Robert began the project over thirty years ago with the intention of providing a healthy and therapuetic environment for himself and his brother Lacon, born with severe learning disabilities. Starting as relatively conventional smallholders, Robert soon

Cycad Ferox - Encephalartos Ferox
Encephalartos ferox comprises a fairly narrow strip of coastal scrub extending from Sodwana Bay on the Zululand coast up to a point about 650 km north of Maputo in Mozambique. It is fairly well established throughout this area and although the species is not officially listed as endangered, rare or threatened, numbers have been reduced due to encroachment of habitation in Mozambique, afforestation activities in Zululand and the activities of unscrupulous collectors.

Planting Trees - Strategies for Survival
Every year more than one million trees are planted on public and private properties throughout North America, these are not the trees are not planted as a part of a reforestation project, they are the trees that we use for personal and community ambiance. Of these trees, less than 50 percent will survive more than two years.

By George Weigel/The Patriot-News

Q: I live next to the woods in Mountaindale (Susquehanna Twp.), and various animals have been eating just about every flower I've tried. We've got deer, voles, rabbits, chipmunks and who knows what else. Are there any perennial flowers that I can get away with? It's also shade.

A: I feel for you. The shade is great, and those chipmunks are cute, but it'd also be nice to be able to grow at least a few flowers.

I can't guarantee anything to be 100 percent animal-proof (especially when the deer are really hungry), but here are a few shade perennials that animals usually let alone: barrenwort (Epimedium), bleeding heart (Dicentra), false forget-me-nots (Brunnera), coralbells (Heuchera), foamflowers (Tiarella), foamybells (Heucherella), hardy ginger (Asarum canadense), hardy geraniums (Geranium), Lenten rose (Helleborus), most ferns, Japanese forestgrass (Hakonechloa macra), lamium (Lamium maculatum), lungwort (Pulmonaria), variegated Solomon's seal (Polygonatum odoratum), and sweet woodruff (Galium).

Good luck.

All About the Wild Orchids
Orchids grow in the wild, thriving mostly in dense forests and jungles, making them such exotic members of the botanical world. Wild orchids exist practically in every planet save, of course, for Antarctica where plant life can hardly survive.