Garden Tour
(delayed) Mid summer walk around in the Forest Garden....
This was supposed to be a Solstice timed update but its a wee bit late…The tour starts in the Orchard Forest garden which is the first bit of ‘forest garden’ we designed and planted from 2017. We initially broke the design into manageable “patches” to help us plan and plant in stages. It was a practical way to get things going without being overwhelmed.
But as the years have passed those individual patches have merged into one another. Now, the whole place feels like a forest garden — a connected, living ecosystem with fuzzy edges between each space. The Orchard Forest Garden sits on the north side of our land, but thanks to a gentle slope facing south, it enjoys plenty of sunshine. Our aim here was to grow an abundance of fruit, herbs and flowers—not just for us, but for the birds, bees, and countless other beasties who share this space. We also wanted to reduce the amount of lawn to mow, cut back on labour and inputs, and instead boost soil health, biodiversity, and create a beautiful, welcoming entrance to the site.
Over the previous barren lawn, we’ve layered this space like a natural woodland edge: starting with apple and plum trees, then building outwards and downwards with shrubs, perennials, herbs, groundcovers, nectaries, nitrogen fixers, and dynamic accumulators — all working together in cooperative "guilds", communities of plants that support each other and the wider ecosystem.
As you’ll see in the video, the grass path winds through a diverse and dense planting — starting at the honeysuckle, Crocosmia, then Blackcurrants, Sweet Woodruff, Early Rivers Plum, Apple Mint, Horseradish, Lemon Balm, an Espalier Howgate Wonder Apple, Redcurrants, Lupin, sweet cicely, a Katya Apple, Chokeberry, Ribston Pippin Apple, Elder, Echinacea, Sea Buckthorn, Good King Henry, Sorrel, Gooseberries, Geranium, Szechuan Pepper, St. Johns Wort, Strawberries and and a beautiful Amelanchier bring the walk full circle..although there are probably some others I’ve forgotten to mention!
Our tour continues around the house from the orginal ‘forest garden’ with Juneberry in fruit, to the old chicken area in the west wood, passing through an archway with roses, jasmine and everlasting sweet peas. Since we longer have the hens, we have gradually incorporated this area into forest style planting with fruit bushes, herbs, guelder rose and a damson tree. The old chicken run has become a fruit and brassica cage to protect the crops from the pigeons, surrounded by drifts of wild flower meadow. We also have some hardy kiwi on the fence line which are getting well established but no fruits yet. This leads through another archway to the south terrace which is a sunny slope at the back of the house. We designed this area to be a beautiful space for flowers and herbs, as we look out on it from the large windows on this side of the house and its alow where we have outside seating, so we wanted to be surrounded by plants buzzing with bees and birds. It gets a lot of sun and has been planted with naturalistic beds which include echinacea, shasta daisies, geranium, knappweed, achillea, crocosmia, cammasia, lupin, dyers greenweed. There is also a laid hazel hedge which provides nuts, habitat, wind break and defines the area, leading to the next terrace.
Thanks for looking, we’ll continue in the next post where we’ll look at the south terrace hugel beds, kitchen garden and meadows! If you’ve enjoyed this little tour of part of the garden, feel free to comment and please subscribe so you don’t miss the next installment!