Forest Gardening

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.

Autorentext

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.

Zusammenfassung
Forest gardening is a way of working with Nature which is not only productive and requires minimal maintenance, but creates great environmental benefits. As Herbert Girardet says in his Foreword, "Robert Hart was a rare person . . . For decades he waged a lonely battle for life, patiently writing books and articles and quietly planting trees on his small farm in Shropshire. Robert created a magnificent forest garden which had a profound influence on the way people have cultivated their own land. It was a garden dedicated to human needs for fruit, nuts, vegetables and plant medicines. But it was at the same time a celebration of the myriad interactions of life; for it was based on profound observations, both intuitive and scientific, of how different life forms interact in order to stimulate and support one another."

Inhalt

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