You really inspired me to check this out, Rebecca! Very interesting concept that I guess could closely identify with permaculture.

I am attaching a website that I found that lists a few vegetable companion plants for forest gardening. At the top of the page, at the end of the list, you can click on "resources and links" and you'll get some ideas on where to look for plants. There is a lot of other information on this website, too.

For native plants, I highly recommend Prairie Moon Nursery on the web. Some plants you may be able to find at local nurseries, depending on where you're located in the state. I grow a lot of native plants myself, because the focus of my garden is urban wildlife - butterflies, moths, bees, birds, etc., for which I grow several larval host plants. I then raise the caterpillars, feeding them the appropriate food, and release them when they have reached adulthood.

My yard is small so I really don't have enough space to meet the qualifications for forest gardening, but I do try to feed me and the critters while I'm at it. I do love the idea, though.

Although this webpage doesn't directly refer to "forest gardening", I think that the idea is also used for "intense planting".

For books, I found recommendations for the following:

How to Make a Forest Garden, by Patrick Whitefield (once again, from the UK, but an updated "how to" book)

Creating a Forest Garden: Working With Nature to Grow Edible Crops, Martin Crawford

The elite book on the subject is probably going to be Edible Forest Gardening (2 Vol. set) by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier. Check out on Amazon if you're interested:

"Edible Forest Gardening"

It's kinda expensive - $94.50, and that's with 37% off. You may find it less expensive elsewhere on the web, perhaps Abe's Books. The authors are American, and at least you would get the American perspective on the issue.

I also found an article in Mother Earth News, entitled Plant an Edible Forest Garden, by Harvey Ussery, August/September 2007 issue:

"Mother Earth News Article"

This website, containing info at the Veganic Agriculture Network, on forest gardening, and has a list of nurseries that have available and suitable plants for forest gardening.

Once you develop a plan of action, including what plants you'd like to grow, if you come back to the forum, we can help you with whether or not you can probably find them locally, or if you will need to use a mail order source.

"Nursery Listings, Etc."

I for one, am very interested in your progress, and would appreciate updates on how things are going for you and your lovely garden. So excited for you!

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Avant-Gardening

The term 'Forest Garden' rang a bell with me. I found the link below in my bookmarks. Maybe it will be useful to you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Natural Farmer - Forest Gardening

Thank you for the links. I've wondered how to adapt this idea to the lack of water that is normal for this area.

Two plants that have worked in an unwatered area in expansive clay are thyme under a yaupon tree. Salad burnet has been okay, unwatered, planted in the ground under the roof overhang on the north side of the house. It might go under the yaupon just fine, too. The salad burnet never got very big, so couldn't be harvested often.

Elephant garlic and chinese (flat-leaf) chives tolerate full sun in unwatered areas. Egyptian onions tolerated shade to part sun, unwatered, but the taste got horribly hot in the summer. Sweet potatoes and potatoes tolerate both sun and partial shade in unwatered areas but can't say much for the crop yield! I'd never grown sweet potates or potatoes before, so that may have been part of the trouble. :-) Hadn't heard of eating sweet potato leaves as greens, so that might have made the sweet potatoes worth it even if the roots never got big.

Lettuce, sweet violets, swiss chard, malabar spinach, and parsley die without extra water even when planted in the shade. They work fine under the tree when watered, although only the sweet violets are perennials.

Day lilies limp through the summer without water, but they will flower some if in full sun. They haven't flowered under shade.

Have never grown amaranth, okra, or any of the other wild edibles.

Has anyone tried anything else?

I am reposting David's post here on New England's Forest Gardening...

This is a very interesting video on a forest gardening project in England. He says there are around 500 species of plant in the garden - all working together. I wonder if anyone in Oklahoma is trying anything along these lines. I wonder if something like this could be adapted to our hot dry summers. Any thoughts?
David.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/07/growing-food-forest-garden-video.php

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Food in a Forest Garden (Video)

Hmmm. Interesting. I don't know about a specifically planted forest garden, but I do have some experience in working with one that was established in native woods, along the lines of what is called "European Groomed Woods". In that case, all the big healthy established trees are left in place and the scrub undergrowth is mostly removed unless it has some value. I made a point of healthy, because you don't want to leave anything old or diseased or a widow-maker left standing in place to create problems later down the line.
The garden I worked with was old growth oaks, fir, pine, and cedar.

I have personal preferences, of course, but it seems that a wonderful resource is right here in OK, up around Muskogee where they have the azalea festival every year. If you have a relatively acid soil or are working under oaks and conifers, the azaleas and rhodies love it. You can create a truly spectacular woodland garden by starting with those. There are a whole lot of tough little plants that will thrive and fill in the blank areas where you can't put much of anything else, and violets immediately come to mind. English primroses also do well. If you can get ornamental ginger to grow, it's wonderful stuff and comes in both plain and variegated leaves. Hostas, of course. Some of the ferns are tough enough to take it if they have protection from the wind. If you want a groundcover for a large area, vinca major will do a bang-up job of it. Just be prepared to deal with it as it spreads, because it definitely will.

You haven't said what you're starting with. Do you have established trees, and if so, what are they? Are you planning on planting new ones to begin it? Explain more, please.

Maybe I need to see if I can find you some photos?

Pat

I realize that I'm coming late to this conversation. I suppose you have to define what kind of forest you are dealing with. The part of Oklahoma I live in is a part of the Crosstimbers Forest, which runs from Texas up into Kansas, and generally between eastern suburbs of OKC to the western suburbs of Tulsa. The blackjack and post oaks can generally be about 400 years old and the red cedars over 500. Wikipedia has a short but interesting article on it, but there's much more on the Crosstimbers out there. (One of its greater claims to fame was it was so thick and difficult to traverse the pioneers heading west would head north and bypass it completely sometimes.)

Succession forests--that is, the different types and kinds of forests that establish themselves over periods of time, culminating in our case with blackjack (that seem to grow about 1 foot per decade) and post oaks and red cedars are a different matter. Introduced species have fouled up this process. On my land the worst offender is the so-called Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), which is a first-stage forest growth tree like the Aspen in cooler climates. It grows fast, loves the heat and drought, and will fill an acre of land in no time at all. They die young, though, and are followed by the oaks.

The woods on my property are not native, but there is a vast variety thanks to the interests of previous owners. There is everything from trifoliate orange to maple, London plane trees to mulberry, cypress to pecans, eastern oaks to lodgepole pine, six or seven different kinds of elm, and the list goes on and on--even including a pear tree that must be 50 or 60 years old, the poor thing. The older trees, like the pecans, cedars, and oaks, are now reaching about 90 years. One old oak is at the stage where its branches have begun to dip to the ground only to regain their support and grow up again, like they do in the East and South and the old oak forests in northern coastal California.

While our Oklahoma native forests are noted for being among the oldest "old growth" forests in the eastern and southern US, the soil in the old growth areas is not noted for its fertility.

I highly recommend reading up on succession forestation. It's a fascinating subject. I also recommend you read more on the Crosstimber Forests. A professor at OU has published a key/taxonomy on native Oklahoma trees--especially the oaks--that is fascinating. It contains excellent leaf drawings for identification and classification.

Hope my comments help a tiny bit.

--Robert

Rebecca, I think what you're talking about is probably entirely different than what I've done. If I'm reading it right, you want to plant your specific trees and then build in under them with lower and lower plants, including veggies and things like that?
If that's true, then this photo won't be of much help to you. I just wanted to show you what can be done in a little problem area of a woodland garden. This was a small slope that wanted to be unruly and sort of ugly. It was one tiny section of the acre or so that we had in woodland gardens.
I braced the bottom of the ridge with 2 x6" and then filled it in with plants that ended up being quite happy there. There are bearded iris, sweet woodruff, campanula, bleeding heart, wild ginger, and Shasta strawberries all growing in here.

At the right and just out of sight is a big santolina (lavender cotton). The trees happen to be alders, but the same technique would apply to a lot of things. Most of the plant materials seen there will also survive in OK.

I don't know if that's given you something to think about or been of any help to you, but I hope so. If you're working with established woods, you need to think about what trees are already there and what will (or will not) grow under them, but there's a huge variety of things to choose from. Best of luck in your adventure.

Pat

Just came across this garden type when googling different garden methods and their benefits. One problem I see with this method is deer. Other than the usual 12' fence with razor wire to keep them out (j/k), how does forest gardening fare against the ravages of deer? It would seem that something like this would just be a giant deer smorgasbord...