Very interested in a microforest in my small yard and as a privacy screen for good, but looming neighbors. I'm encouraged by the "three-year" time frame to visual enjoyment -- at 79 years of age I don't invest in green bananas.
Loved this newsletter! I thought mini forests required something like two feet of compost: I am glad to be disabused of this notion!
For anyone with a woodland garden, I highly recommend The American Woodland Garden: Capturing the Spirit of the Deciduous Forest by Rick Darke, which is out of print, but well worth seeking out. And for anyone in the Northeast, I found Amy Ziffer's The Shady Lady's Guide to Northeast Shade Gardening (second edition) to be very helpful for selecting plants.
16 understory trees and 32 shrubs in a 10’ by 10’ space?! This is blowing my mind, can you explain more? I have some tall pines and yews at the edges of my .18 acre property and just planted 3 nannyberry plants to start to grow a privacy shrub, and I’m contemplating replacing at least some of the yews with either Amalenchier or Eastern Redbud, but adding nearly 50 shrubs and trees never occurred to me! It’s also outside my budget to add that many, but I’m curious to learn what this would even look like!
Yes, it’s so counter to our idea of tree planting. Re cost, the key is the trees and shrubs are quite small initially, which cuts costs and can minimize transplant shock, but as you point out, it still adds up. Here’s a video that shows how quickly these dense plantings grow: https://youtu.be/CKcy0YAzeYU
Here's the correct Root Slayer link, which was wrong in this morning's email: https://a.co/d/045HeI1A
Very interested in a microforest in my small yard and as a privacy screen for good, but looming neighbors. I'm encouraged by the "three-year" time frame to visual enjoyment -- at 79 years of age I don't invest in green bananas.
Your comment recalls that Chinese proverb, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." Go for it :)
Loved this newsletter! I thought mini forests required something like two feet of compost: I am glad to be disabused of this notion!
For anyone with a woodland garden, I highly recommend The American Woodland Garden: Capturing the Spirit of the Deciduous Forest by Rick Darke, which is out of print, but well worth seeking out. And for anyone in the Northeast, I found Amy Ziffer's The Shady Lady's Guide to Northeast Shade Gardening (second edition) to be very helpful for selecting plants.
Oh, and I might need that ultimate garden sheath!!!
Thanks for those book recommendations, Laura. And the sheath is so good I gave Zoe one, too.
16 understory trees and 32 shrubs in a 10’ by 10’ space?! This is blowing my mind, can you explain more? I have some tall pines and yews at the edges of my .18 acre property and just planted 3 nannyberry plants to start to grow a privacy shrub, and I’m contemplating replacing at least some of the yews with either Amalenchier or Eastern Redbud, but adding nearly 50 shrubs and trees never occurred to me! It’s also outside my budget to add that many, but I’m curious to learn what this would even look like!
Yes, it’s so counter to our idea of tree planting. Re cost, the key is the trees and shrubs are quite small initially, which cuts costs and can minimize transplant shock, but as you point out, it still adds up. Here’s a video that shows how quickly these dense plantings grow: https://youtu.be/CKcy0YAzeYU
Thanks for responding to my question! I love how thoughtful and inspiring your posts are.
You’re welcome! I so appreciate your question.