Designing a Forest Garden
As featured in the Society of Garden Designers Journal.
The brief
A forest garden for Bridge Farm Community.
Site: A triangular field, 1500 m2, on a community-owned farm in Bristol.
The garden is intended to provide food for a forthcoming cafe on site and the volunteers who help to maintain it.
What is a forest garden?
Forest Gardens are also known as ‘Food Forests’, a branch of agroforestry where trees and field crops are combined. This allows you to provide more food in a smaller area.
Forest Gardens can be seen as a part of the picture for more sustainable food production due to their space efficiency, stability, and need for minimal inputs or soil disturbance.
How do forest gardens work?
Image: Bridge Farm Forest Garden, Tessa Tricks
Forest gardens mimic the natural ecosystem of a forest where you have layers of planting from the upper canopy to the forest floor. A forest garden is organised in up to seven ‘layers’ including tall trees, smaller trees, climbers, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, ground cover, and everything down to the rhizosphere.
Agroforestry works brilliantly in the tropics and places where light levels are high, it can be more challenging in the UK where light levels are lower, however, there are some great examples of where it’s working within the UK, and Bridge Farm Community wanted to join and promote the movement. Initial funding came from PFAF.
Forest garden design process
Mapping the area and site conditions
Consultation with those involved to refine the brief
Shortlisting appropriate plants for each of the seven layers
Positioning species based on many variables, including their requirements for shelter, light, moisture, good/bad companions, mineral requirements, pollination, pest-protection, etc.
Creating planting plans with a short and long term view.
Planting, maintenance and further fundraising.
Please get in touch if you would like to know more about the forest garden design process and plant selection.
Volunteer at Bridge Farm Forest Garden.
Image: The mature forest garden, plan view, Tessa Tricks
“Tessa Tricks Design’s help with the mapping and the design of our Food Forest Garden has been invaluable. Tessa has provided us with a very comprehensive and high-standard plan for the initial phase and a second plan for the longer term development of the Forest Garden. She has included a great level of detail and information on the plants recommended for our site and the most appropriate suppliers, we’re very grateful for her knowledge and her sharing of these topics.
She has given us really useful suggestions for potential future uses of the Food Forest Garden and for protective measures against pests. It’s been a delight to work with her so far. She has offered her continued help and support during this phase of the initial development of our Forest Garden and we look forwards to continuing working and learning from her!
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