Gardens: Consider creating a forest-inspired paradise

It almost sounds like you'd never have to leave home, particularly as this garden would also look beautiful too.

It might sound like a vision of utopia, but the idea of the forest garden is an increasingly popular one. On BBC2's Gardeners' World, Alys Fowler is currently creating a forest garden on a small plot of land. With climate change in the news, people are looking for ways of becoming more self-sufficient. There couldn't be a better time for a new forest gardening "bible" to be produced.

Martin Crawford is the man behind Creating A Forest Garden (Green Books, 30). With 25 years of experience in horticulture and agriculture, he is the founder of the Agroforestry Research Trust and looks after a two-acre forest garden in Devon. To anyone with no background knowledge about forest gardening, it sounds like an odd concept. Aren't woodlands too dark to grow such a wide range of edible and useful crops? "There is a slight terminology issue here," he says, "because in our culture 'forest' usually implies high trees, canopies touching, making a very dark shady understorey where few productive plants can be grown. I did not coin the term 'forest gardening' so am stuck with it, but I always stress that the structure is akin to that of a young woodland with gaps between trees when full grown, allowing light to get through to lower layers, and thus enabling a much wider range of crops to be grown."

In essence, a forest garden consists of layered systems with plants at different heights. Crawford takes us through the theory and practicalities of designing the top (canopy) layer, the middle (shrub) layers and the lower (perennial or groundcover) layers. "Planning where the trees in the upper layers go is very important and this takes some time," he says. "The underplanting does not have to take place at the same time – in reality most people underplant over a number of years – so the planning of that can be spread out so that it does not feel onerous. Once planted, forest gardens are very low maintenance – this is one of the appealing features for folk with busy lives."

The phrase 'forest garden' conjures up an image of a large area of land, but the principles can be applied even in a small back garden. In Creating a Forest Garden, Crawford provides an extensive plant directory, but also a shortlist of what plants he considers most valuable when space is limited. You can choose from an interesting list that includes tree fruits such as apple, plums, sweet cherry and pears on small rootstocks, nut trees such as almond and hazel, nitrogen fixing trees like bayberry and mimosa and fruiting shrubs like blackberries and flowering quinces. Low-growing perennials include dwarf comfrey, creeping bramble, Nepalese raspberry, ramsons and strawberries. In a small garden, Crawford says you should be able to fit in 50 or so species – as compared to the 500 species he has in his two acre garden.

So what are some of the key benefits of forest gardening? The low maintenance point is a good one – rather than dealing with the time-consuming business of maintaining an annual vegetable bed and ornamental borders, the soil of a forest garden features ground-covering perennial plants, meaning far less weeding. A forest garden should also be self-fertilising – using nitrogen-fixing plants and other plants that are good at raising nutrients from the subsoil rather than having to apply fertilisers. The wide range of products a forest garden produces is one of the main reasons why people choose to garden this way.

If you're aiming for self-sufficiency, how does a forest garden compare to a polytunnel? "In terms of yields, it varies, depending largely on how much time is put into them," says Crawford. "Although they are generally low maintenance, if you want the maximum food out of a forest garden that is still sustainable you will have to put some extra work into it. Highly productive forest gardens can produce as much food as an intensive allotment (which is a lot more than general farming produces)."

Besides providing lots of tasty and useful products, forest gardens are environmentally beneficial. They enjoy good soil structure because of the ground cover, they are efficient at storing water and preventing flooding and erosion, and the diversity of plants found in them means that they are excellent for wildlife. You might like the idea of a forest garden, but is it possible to reconcile this sort of planting scheme in a garden that also has to house children, pets or a place to sit and eat or relax? "Forest gardens need to have spaces for people too because they are lovely places to spend time in. I have a large pond in my own forest garden, though with ponds it is important to make sure they are not too shaded. Likewise small areas of lawn for recreation are fine, though large lawns cannot really justify their unproductiveness in a forest garden."

Can plants ever be included just because they are pretty rather than useful? Yes, says Crawford, pointing out that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to this style of gardening. "Forest gardens are very much designed around the wants of the owners. Sometimes they may want to retain or introduce ornamentals in the garden, and sometimes they may want other useful plants, for example medicinal plants. It is very important to include plants which help feed other plants to make the system sustainable – for example, nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs. Some of these may be edible crops but others may not, yet they are still valuable enough to earn a place in the garden."

So whether you have dreams of being self-sufficient or just want to make your plot just a little bit more productive, forest gardening gives plenty of food for thought.

For a host of exciting new plant products, visit www.vanmeu-wen.com/scotsman

This article was first published in The Scotsman Magazine, April 24, 2010