Loving Garland Green

Creating Woodland Gardens

In addition to the vegetable garden plots, we plan to have a woodland garden located on the Garland Community site. The woodland garden, once established, functions as an eco-system.  Unlike the traditional vegetable garden, the woodland garden needs little care once established.  

The woodland garden is a small forest designed to be similar to the outer edges of a forest.  The plants, including the flowers, are all edible perennials.  The trees are fruit and nut trees.  The shrubs are also fruit bearing plants such as pomegranates, blueberry bushes, blackberry bushes, etc.  The lower plants are various herbs, and greens such as miners lettuce, chicory, etc.  

The gardener in temperate climates such as ours has about 2,100 edible plants to choose from.  Once established, the woodland trees and plants continue to grow year after year with almost no weeding, feeding or watering.  A wide range of plants can grow side by side, each occupying its own space; some with deep roots bringing up nutrients from beyond the reach of others.  When leaves fall, they provide the nutrients and substance to the soil.

The two areas we originally designated for establishing these gardens at 4022 Naaman School Road were on either side of the paved driveway at the entrance to the Garland Community Garden.

 Previously Planned Location of Woodland Garden I - beginning spring 2014 

In the photograph above Anita stands in the majestic grove of pecan trees under whose canopy we hoped to establish one of the woodland gardens.  However due to future plans of the Parks and Recreation Department this area and the area below are no longer part of our licensed area.  We now plan to use another area near the back of the garden.

 The Previously Planned Woodland Garden II - beginning spring 2014 

 Why Woodland Gardens?

For maximum yields of healthy food, we should be growing perennial crops–not annual crops.  We should be following the model of the woodland forest–a blueprint from nature. The correct agricultural model would be locally grown and locally distributed perennial crops along with a mixture of aquaponic grown food.  Our current agricultural system is not sustainable. 

Consider this hypothetical situation:  You have two acres of land.  On one acre of land you plant pecan trees. On the other acre of land you plant wheat.   Once the trees are planted and old enough to bear nuts, all you need to do is come along in the fall and harvest the nuts.  With the wheat, the ground must be cultivated every year, seed must be sown, a method must be found to control the weeds, fertilizers added in order to achieve satisfactory yields, fungicides and insecticides must be applied in order to control pests and disease, and finally large machinery is required to harvest the wheat.  Furthermore, on one acre of land the yield of pecans will be greater than the acre of wheat.

Recommended Reading:

WOODLAND GARDENING – a book on woodland garden design published by Plants for a Future (An English charity)   ISBN 9781484069165

PARADISE LOT
When Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates moved into a duplex in a run-down part of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the tenth-of-an-acre lot was barren ground and bad soil, peppered with broken pieces of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The two friends built a "permaculture paradise" of perennial broccoli and other perennial edibles—all told, more than two hundred low-maintenance edible plants in an innovative food forest on a small city lot. The garden—functions like a natural ecosystem.

ISBN 978 -1-60358-399-2 (published)     ISBN 978 -1-60358-400-5 (ebook)  

SUSTAINABLE