Tiny forests, big miracles

Ferns carpet a typical redwood forest ecosystem in Northern California. Photo by Betsey Crawford

“The forest is the root of all life; it is the womb that revives our biological instincts, that deepens our intelligence and increases our sensitivity as human beings.”
~ Akira Miyawaki ~


Much of Earth’s land area would like to be forest. Not in the aridity of deserts or grasslands or the sogginess of wetlands. And not at very high altitudes or the extreme cold of either pole. But everywhere else, given the slightest chance, a forest will grow.

The minute you stop plowing a field or mowing a lawn, the process of succession starts. That’s why, all over New England, you stumble on stone walls weaving through deep forests. They are relics of the earliest colonial farms, hard-fought from rocky forested land. Then abandoned when roads and trains solved the problem of bringing food from easier-to-farm areas.

Proper forest layering is crucial to the success of tiny forests: canopy layer, tree layer, sub-tree layer, shrub layer, ground layer. Graphic courtesy of Afforestt.
Forests grow in layers over time. Not labeled is the ground layer. Graphic courtesy of Afforest

First, the grasses and wildflowers will grow freely. Then shrubs will crowd them out. Fast-growing pioneer trees will take off. Eventually, the canopy trees will reach full height. Below them, the smaller trees, shrubs, and low, shade-loving plants like ferns will have established themselves. The soil will have become rich and loose as the litter from dying leaves, plants, animals, and insects decomposed and enriched it. Underground nutrient- and message-transporting fungal mycelium threads will have woven the whole together.

All you need is a couple of hundred years or more.

The Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park in northwest Washington shows the lush growth that 140 inches of rain a year provide by Betsey Crawford
The primeval Hoh Rainforest in Washington has been layering and enriching itself for eons.

In the 1970s, Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki developed a way to make it all happen faster on a small scale. Much faster: ten years to a functioning forest, 30-50 to a mature one. If you could do that, you could put them anywhere a forest could prosper. That means fitting them into backyards, empty lots, barren landscapes, properties of all sizes and shapes.

Japan’s rapidly growing industrial sectors were causing rampant air and water pollution. Miyawaki knew that planting random greenery would do nothing to help. So he turned for inspiration to the resilient, healthy ecosystems of the old forests around shrines. He convinced Nippon Steel to plant small forests at their various sites. Other companies followed and, because many had international sites, the idea spread to other countries.

Especially India. There, in 2008, an industrial engineer working for Toyota heard Miyawaki speak. He volunteered to work on the tiny forest being planned on the site and then created one in his own backyard. By 2011, Shubhendu Sharma had left Toyota and started the company Afforest, geared entirely for the planting of such forests.

Children monitoring a 9 month-old planting in Zandaam, Netherlands. Photo courtesy of Afforestt.
Children monitoring a nine-month-old planting in Zandaam, Netherlands. Photo courtesy of Afforestt.

They have since done projects worldwide and have been joined by other companies and organizations spreading the work. Among them, SUGI is a consortium linked to the World Economic Forum. EarthWatch Europe, another WEF partner, has planted over 200 tiny forests in Great Britain and Europe. IVN in the Netherlands is a leader in involving schools and children.

The list of groups and their successes grows by the year. Hundreds have been planted in India, thousands in Japan. They are all over the world now: from Africa to Europe and the Middle East. South and now, slowly, North America.

In an act of corporate generosity, Afforest publishes all the information you need online. All the tools and tricks they use, the products they have found most successful. You can, if you like, do your own planting by following their guidelines. Thanks to their openness for five of the photos included here.

There are, however, good reasons to make it a communal effort. First is community itself, the bonus of connecting a neighborhood to nature. Especially getting children involved in something they can see grow as they do. Starting them, perhaps, on a lifetime of nature stewardship.

Involving children in planting and tending tiny forests means creating the next generation of forest stewards. Photo courtesy of Afforestt from a planting in Zandaam, Netherlands.
Children planting in a 2015 Afforestt project in Zandaam, Netherlands.

The other great advantage of communal effort is that it’s hard work and can be costly. The steps are clear and easy to understand. But each is easily a team effort. The first step is identifying the native plants in your area. Tiny forests will work only with the plants evolved to suit the local weather and other geological conditions.

Seeds are collected and grown into seedlings, usually by a nursery, though anyone can grow them. This needs six to twelve months and some knowledge of the plants and seeds you’re dealing with. Some seeds, for example, need to be cold for a spell before sprouting, as if they have gone through winter.

The phenomenal growth of roots in tiny forests after just one year. Photo courtesy of Afforestt.
Phenomenal root growth in one year. Photo courtesy of Afforestt.

Once the seedlings are on their way, it’s time to prepare the soil. This is the biggest job, and depending on the size of the plot, will likely need machinery. Digging down several feet and turning in loose, organic material like straw and peat is important. The speed of growth depends on roots finding easy ways to move through the soil. Microbes to foster mycelium are added, as is lots of compost.

The plot is designed with the ready seedlings in mind. Three to five mixed varieties — low-growing perennials, shrubs, and trees of different heights — are planted per square yard. It’s jammed! The planting is the fun part since the soil is so loose. What’s more fun than digging a fast, easy hole and putting a plant in it, especially for kids?

The area is then mulched with a thick layer of local material, like straw or hay. The plot needs to be watered and weeded for three years. By then the plants are tall and full enough to shade out weeds and to keep moisture in the ground.

The seed pod of a crown flower breaking open. Photo yb Gaurav Gujar for Afforestt.
Crown flower. Photo by Gaurav Gujar for Afforestt.

After that, the whole plot behaves like a forest. Plants go through their life cycle, dropping their seeds, are replaced by new growth as they die back. Insects, birds, and small mammals flock to it. Soil grows richer and more complex. Carbon is sequestered and pollution is reduced. Water is held in the ground. Each geographical area produces its own dynamics that play out over time. Every installation offers lessons about the next one.

There are objections. Jamming plants from every layer of the forest into a square yard is not a natural process. After a fire, for example, the first plants to show up will be wildflowers. They can cover the ground thickly. But it will be years before taller shrubs and young trees gain any size and crowd them out.

The goal in mixing layers from the beginning is to spur fast growth as each plant races higher to get more sunlight. The competition is fierce and not all seedlings will make it, mimicking, though intensifying, the competition in natural forests.

A community planting a tiny forest in Kanakakunnu, India. Photo by Beman Herish.
A community planting in Kanakakunnu, India. Photo by Beman Herish via Wikimedia Commons

Even when using the native plants of an area, you can end up with an arbitrary selection of plants. Careful attention has to be paid to which plants grow together best in a natural forest and how they spread themselves out. And if your native plants are grasses, for example, then it’s the wrong place for a forest. But the right place to restore a grassland, using Miyawaki principles as guidance.

The Miyawaki method is not meant to produce natural restorations. Nor are they gardens, and their wildness may present challenges, particularly in accessible public spaces. Their point is to quickly bring the advantages of stable forests to each area where they are planted. They are not a substitute for stopping the demolition of old-growth and mature forests or for their slow restoration. These dense plantings create ecosystems of their own. They are a vast improvement  — 100 times more biodiverse — over the monocultures planted to make up for the wholesale clearing of forests.

They are also excellent solutions for greening urban and roadside spaces. Outstanding choices for mitigating heat islands that are mostly a phenomenon of scarcely planted, low-income areas. Great projects for communities and schools. Earthwatch Australia even recommends including an outdoor classroom in the middle of a tiny forest. Afforestt included such an open space in the project below.

Before and after of tiny forest planting in Clifton Park by Afforestt.

While green spaces are crucial for the health of every being on the planet, tiny forests are particularly valuable for children. We live in a world where some children are outside for only 16 minutes a day. A tiny forest to plant, tend, and then monitor for wildlife is a gift to all. The Dutch group International Environmental Education has involved over 10,000 students in their tiny forests. “Children are the tiny Forest Rangers,” they write. “This way we educate the ecosystem restorers of the future.”

The intense greening of our cities, suburbs, and roadways is an important gateway to many things we care about. Study after study proves that green spaces boost mental and physical health, cooperation, inventiveness, happiness, calmness, family bonds. They provide habitat for birds, mammals, lizards and other invertebrates, butterflies and insects. They cool their locale while sequestering carbon and giving off oxygen.

Tiny forests are one of many paths to greening our built world. It’s a wide and intense path, so it can be a powerful force. Along with choosing to garden with native plants, we can continue to quilt piece after green piece together. Not only creating more nature-filled spaces but connecting them into corridors crucial to biodiversity. Given all that we have taken from her, we have every reason to help Earth do one of her favorite things — grow a forest.

A SUGI sponsored project in Berkeley, California, one of three at local schools

~ RELATED POSTS ~

DESIGNING FOR HAPPINESS

I think I’m addicted to a nearby forest. The combination of greens, glinting sunlight, and the spicy scent of bay leaves makes it irresistible. As we re-green our cities, let’s call it landscaping for happiness. There is science behind this pleasant idea, along with six million years of evolution.

GARDENING TO SAVE HALF THE EARTH

Activists focus on crucial projects like saving the vast Amazon basin. But it’s vitally important that we preserve, create, and connect local habitats everywhere we can. Mercifully, as gardeners, all we need is a shovel and the right plants for fostering biodiversity where we are.

A GIRL IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

For five young years, I lived in paradise, roaming woods, ponds, meadows. That green sprite is still with me. Children today are not so blessed. Their loss is tragic for all of us and for the planet.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top