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Hope Garden
Announcing a wildlife forest garden with a Community Assembly at its heart 💚
Firstly, a warm welcome to my new subscribers, mostly from my Forest Garden Primer, a 20 minute class which I’ve managed to publish for free. Please do spread the forest garden word by sharing the class.
Hope Garden
Together with a very talented team, we are creating an RHS show garden for the Nature and Climate Emergency. At its heart lies a Community Assembly, in the midst of a wildlife forest garden 💚
A Community Assembly is an inclusive, structured space for reflective discussion and learning, where ideas are generated, decisions are made and action is taken. It is a form of direct democracy.
It is a facilitated, non-hierarchial space where everybody’s views are heard and valued. We want to use this space in the garden to bootstrap the practise of Community Assemblies, and to discuss the Emergency in a horticultural context, with a range of topics and input from experts.
The wildlife forest garden showcases the low carbon practises required to increase wildlife and native plant diversity, whilst simultaneously growing edible crops.
An organisation called Trust The People is running a free 8 week course on Community Assemblies in September, and I’ll keep posting updates about the garden here 😊
Online workshops
I gave an online workshop for the Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust last night. They have an amazing 2 acre EcoPark site right in the city, and part of that is a 20m x 11m forest garden.
The workshop was great, focussing on public level access to forest gardening via the route of foraging.
If you’re interested in the content, the slides and notes are here natureworks.org.uk/talks/forage and I posted a trial run video on Youtube.
If you’re interested in hiring me to run a workshop, drop me an email [email protected]
Forge garden design project
Birdseye view of the new project
I’m very lucky to have a new garden design project, codenamed Forge. It’s in the middle of Ceredigion, and the client is looking for advice on low-maintenance ornamental planting for a holiday let, a vegetable growing area & polytunnel, and lots of lots grass in a field. There will be trees.
I’m making a site visit next week for a survey and to write up suggestions. Before starting, there are a few suggestions that are useful for many people:
Mow a perimeter path around large grass areas, which stops bramble from creeping in.
Divide the garden into different areas for different functions using paths.
Break the job down into manageable chunks. Once you have your infrastructure in place (structures, canopy layer, windbreaks), concentrate on one area at a time.
I will be looking at existing plants, possiblities for wildlife habitat, sizes for trees and opportunities for glorious swatches of colourful native wild flowers.
If you would like your garden designed, I have details about my design process on my website and feel free to email me [email protected]
Forest garden photos
Gary getting stuck in to the primary school garden creation!
Glorious combination of Lavender in flower and sedum about to flower shortly
Privet Hawkmoth caterpillar, precarious by the rose 'James Galway'
Native Honeysuckle in bloom, scented gloriously
Common Knapweed in full flow
Inspirational quote
““Hope and beauty are the fight for equality, and they are painful and uncomfortable in their most revolutionary forms”
Quick links
Updated resources - I have updated my resources page with a couple of apps: Pl@ntNet, iNaturalist and Seek.
The Nextdoor Nature Hub - a new venture by The Wildlife Trusts, designed to get people creating nature friendly habitat in their neighbourhood
Buck Moon Newsletter - Another fabulous link filled newsletter from landscape ecologist Rebecca McMackin
Plants, Wildlife and Polycultures for Forest Gardens and Regenerative Landscapes - lovely wide-ranging post by The Polyculture Project
Polish Pickled Cherries - recipe from Robin Harford’s Eatweeds newsletter
Hire me
Wildlife and food forest garden designer, remote design a speciality, drop me an email [email protected]
Thank you all, Jake