Yesterday I planted the last tree of the Winter season, one of over 1,ooo. Almost all of the trees went into my new Forest Garden.

The trees are predominately pioneers, to provide shelter for the primary production trees, but all provide pollen, nectar, or both for my bees. Many will also provide food.  (Multiple Outputs). There is also a stand of timber trees below the top (Northern) swale.

The trees have been planted close together, as I am using the trees to shade out the grass in the field. Eventually, some of these trees will be removed, or kept cut back. I'll also be using grass as mulch, cut with a scythe.

The outline plan for the Forest garden is below, but during planting, I increased the number of glades, and now have sheltered planting areas for 17 fruit/nut trees.

The planting list for the Forest garden is

500 Italian Alder, 200 Hazel, 100 Amelanchier, 100 Cherry Plum, 100 Rosa Rugosa, , 40 Sweet Chestnut, about 200 Willow, 20 Western Red Cedar, 20 English Oak, 20 European larch, about a dozen hardy eucalyptus, and four varieties of bamboo.

The main fruit production trees will be planted in the Autumn. In the meantime, I'm going to excavate some ponds, and use the soil that comes out to build mounds to plant the food trees into, in order to raise the roots above a high Winter water table.

You can read more about the design here.