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FG quantities

JH Jo Homan Public Seen by 86

How many forest gardens do you know of in your county? I reckon there are at least 30 in London that are in the public realm and hundreds in people's back gardens. I want to know how many there are in the whole country...

FW

Fergus Walker Wed 15 Jun 2022 11:09AM

There is of course the Agroforestry & Forest Garden Network list on Agroforestry Research Trust https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/about_us/network/members/. It would be a bit of work to cross-reference the various info people have posted. Why do you want to know - do you just want a big total number or are you looking for more detail?

NBJ

Nickie Bartlett / Jakeman Sat 11 Jun 2022 8:41AM

Hi,

Here’s a link to the mapping work that was done by NFGS about 3 years. It covers publically accessible community forest gardens, so a subset of the total number of FGs. There’s probably more garden’s now, but it’s a good starting point. https://nationalforestgardening.org/resources/places-to-visit/

JH

Jo Homan Fri 10 Jun 2022 9:07AM

Thanks so much for the info so far. Would be good to get a rough idea from other parts of the UK :)

JLM

Jane Lesley Morris Thu 9 Jun 2022 9:35AM

I know 5 public ones in City of Manchester and adjoining Borough of Bury. I know of or heard of others in allotments and private gardens and in other parts of the Metropolis & surrounding counties. We are striving to get Forest Gardens into all sorts of spaces including NHS & Housing providers' grounds and edges of community orchards so it may be difficult to count them all. Estimations could be used to enhance the map we have (but I couldn't find on the website, Paul Pivcevic organised it for us). This could help us promote forest gardening at city/town/borough, metropolitan and county or bioregional and organisational levels!

I have put out a call to our Manchester Permaculture Network group and hope to share an estimate at least of the publicly accessible ones in a couple of weeks. Could others please do similar?

LB

Lyla Byrne Sat 28 May 2022 11:27AM

this project in West Cornwall also involves forest gardening - https://www.permaculture.org.uk/people-projects-places/project/gear-downs-farm

LB

Lyla Byrne Thu 26 May 2022 8:25AM

https://permaculturekernow.org/wp/

I am not certain - but i think that there may be more self identified treeplanting/re-wilding projects and community orchards than public forest gardens in west Cornwall, at the moment - but one mission of World's End Forest Garden near St Just, West Penwith (in the auspicis of our CIC) , is to inspire more. There is ofcourse The Forest Garden, near Falmouth - run by Simon Miles who is a member here i think, and a fg teacher - so he would know about others in that area i expect. The project that i have linked to above would also be worth contacting i think to find out about forest gardens in east Cornwall. I would guess that more and more people everywhere are developing their own gardens using forest garden techniques as these are becoming increasingly well known.