Design concepts

Themes

• Forest garden 
• Chop and drop mulching

The main theme of the garden will be to base the design around a forest garden. (see appendix) Due to the gardens small size, two layers from the forest garden “Lower Canopy or Sub-Canopy” and the “Upper Canopy” will be intentionally left out, leaving the remaining five, “Roots and Rhizosphere”, “Ground Cover”,  “Herbaceous perennials and annuals”, “Shrubs, and understorey bushes”, and “Vines and Climbers. Using the forest garden design all of the aims that we want to be included in this garden and will flow together seamlessly. The forest garden design will also help to work towards a closed-loop design (see appendix). 

The aim of growing soft fruits, culinary and medicinal herbs will be more achievable with this forest garden design concept. Growing plants together in different guilds will provide niches for layering the different plants.

The forest garden design concept along with the chop and drop (see appendix) method of mulching will become low maintenance and will lead to creating a better habitat for wildlife as the garden matures. (see appendix)

The addition of small ponds will create a new wildlife habitat providing an opportunity for aquatic plants and insects. The ponds will also offer an extra layer of sound to the garden with the use of small solar water pumps.  

Layouts

Design Details 

Phase One

Year one

• Remove Shrubs
• Remove lawn
• Add contour mounds
• Plant fruit bushes
• Plant up the rest of the garden
• Mulch exposed soil
• Add pond
• Sow chamomile lawn seed over paths

Remove Shrubs - In preparation for starting the implementation of the design, the removal of all the shrubs will need to be carried out. This will involve the removal of the main growing roots of each shrub to avoid any unwanted grow back, dogwood will grow suckers from roots left in the ground.  

Remove lawn - Due to the small size of the garden I have chosen to dig off the lawn sod. The removed sod will then be used in the formation of the contour mounds.

Add contour mounds - Using an A-frame level (see appendix) to find the contour of the slope, mark out with sticks and string where a mound will be placed to help level the garden and prevent water running off the soil. (see appendix) Once the contour has been marked out a trench will be dug along the line. The trench will then be backfilled with the lawn sod and compacted down. The dugout soil from the trench will now be used to form a mound along the length of the contour. The soil above each of the two contour mounds can now be leveled slightly using compost brought from the allotment.  

Plant fruit bushes - After collecting the fruit bushes from the allotment a mix of compost and farmyard manure will be used when planting the bushes.

Plant up the rest of the garden - After planting out any remaining plants brought from the allotment, additional plants will be added throughout the year.

Mulch exposed soil - With the fruit bushes and other plants now in the ground, a mulch of bark chippings will be spread over the whole of the growing area leaving only the paths still in bare soil. (see appendix)

Add pond - With the frost's out of the way a small molded polyethylene pond will be added into the garden with a small solar fountain. To get the pond established a bucket of mud and pondweed gathered from a local wild pond will be added into the new pond. (see appendix) 

Sow chamomile lawn seed over paths - With the warmer weather, a couple of bags of compost will be spread over the paths, leveled then sown with roman chamomile seeds (Chamaemelum Nobile). (see appendix)

Phase Two

Year one

• Remove lawn
• Add contour mounds
• Add pond
• Plant up the rest of the garden
• Mulch exposed soil
• Add stone circle
• Sow chamomile lawn seed over paths

Remove lawn - As with phase one, dig off the lawn sod. The removed sod will then be used in the formation of the contour mounds.

Add contour mounds - Using an A-frame level (see appendix) to find the contour of the slope, mark out with sticks and string where a mound will be placed to help level the garden and prevent water running off the soil. (see appendix) Once the contour has been marked out a trench will be dug along the line. The trench will then be backfilled with the lawn sod and compacted down. The dugout soil from the trench will now be used to form a mound along the length of the contour.

Add pond - Another small molded polyethylene pond will be added into the garden with a small solar water pump used to pump the water out of the pond letting it run over a piece of clay pipe back into the pond. To get the pond established a bucket of mud and pondweed gathered from a local wild pond will be added into the new pond. (see appendix) 

Plant up the rest of the garden - Plant out any plants that have been waiting to go into the ground. As with phase one, additional plants will be added throughout the year. 

Mulch exposed soil - Once the landscaping of the garden has been finished mulching the garden with bark chippings will help prevent the soil from drying out. (see appendix)

Add stone circle - Mark out the circle using a string attached to a center stick drawing a circle into the soil.  With a compass, mark out the summer and winter solstice sunrise and sunsets, these will be the locations of the main stones, an additional stone will be used for the winter solstice sunset with the sun setting between the two stones. The remaining four stones to be placed evenly throughout the rest of the circle. (see appendix)   

Sow chamomile lawn seed over paths - With the addition of a few bags of compost spread and leveled over the paths and on the inside of the stone circle, roman chamomile seeds (Chamaemelum Nobile) will then be sown. (see appendix)

Year two

• Improve the soil
• Add more plants

Improve the soil – Keep adding organic material to the soil. (see appendix)  

Add more plants – Fill up the garden with more plants so no soil is showing (see appendix)

Year three and so on

Re-Evaluate the design - Re-evaluate this design using a SWOC analyse to understand the Strengths and Weaknesses of the design, the Opportunities, and the Challenges.

Implement any changes to the design that got came out of the SWOC analyse.

Design – Maintenance

Daily throughout the growing season:

• Watering
• Ponds

Watering – At different times of the growing season, daily maintenance will vary. During the first year whilst trying to get the plants established, watering will be the main priority. In the coming years, watering will only be required during long dry spells or when additional plants have been added to the garden. (see appendix)

Ponds - Monitoring the water levels of the two ponds making and sure the pumps are working correctly and are not blocked or pumping the water out of the pond. (see appendix)

Weekly throughout the growing season:

• Chop and drop

Chop and drop – With the garden been relatively small in size for the number of plants that will be growing, a weekly chop and drop will be needed to prevent the more prevalent plants from growing over everything else. Comfrey and mints are two examples of plants to be watchful of.

Outside of the growing season

The addition of composts especially around the fruit bushes in winter will help to give the plants an extra boost in spring.

Mulching the garden with fallen leaves gathered from the carpark will help to add nutrients back into the soil as the microbes begin to break the leaves down. It will also help to prevent the soil from been exposed to the frost during the winter and help to prevent the sun from drying out the soil in the summer.  

Harvesting

The most time-consuming job in the garden each year will be the harvesting of the berries. This will be during the hottest part of the year, collecting the berries before the sun hits the garden will be the best time to carry out this job.

Harvesting for the rest of the plants in the garden will depend greatly on what the plants are to be used for. Some plants will be gathered and dried for later use in teas, others for fresh teas and salads.

Maintenance conclusion

If the garden is maintained correctly it will involve minimal work, missing a few weeks in a row of not chopping back will result in the garden running wild. At this point, the garden will become an excellent habitat for wildlife but with a reduced variety of plants and berries for human consumption due to certain plants outgrowing others. This is why it’s important in a confined space garden like this to be ruthless at chopping back certain plants to give others a chance to grow and ultimately produce higher yields.