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

Violet - I appreciate you posting about the special events. Sometimes I don't know about them 'til they're over.

I had to completely redo my garden due to wind damage and removal of three large trees (that took up alot of room). First I had to address the fence that one of the trees took out when it fell - I planted a hedge of fruit trees mostly: black mulberry, Buffalo clove current, gold raspberry, Aprium'Flavor Delight,' plum'Burgundy,' pluot'Flavor King,' nectarine'Arctic Star,' each 'Donut/Stark Saturn,' pomegranite 'Eversweet,' white apricot 'Canada White Blenheim' and an Austin shrub rose 'Golden Celebration.' Under these are planted four different strawberry cultivars, Alpine, Seascape, Chandler and Sequoia. Next, I needed to put something that will eventually shade the south facade of the house and some of the roof, I didn't want roof rats feasting and camping out in my attic, nor did I want fallen fruit where I walk into the house, so I opted for beauty and planted flowering cherries, P.blireiana, P.'Yoshino,' P.campanulata and P.'Kanzan.' While shopping for these, I came across a couple of fruiting P.mume and bought both, a double pink and single white (both fragrant). Then I planted a quartet of Japanese persimmons, Hyakume, Suruga, Chocolate and Maru and a contorted Jujube, pear Comice to be trained as a single cordon "step-over," Feijoia (for the petals - deliciously sweet and juicy) and a Sweetshade, Hymenosporum flavum to disguise a utility pole and the fragrance is divine. I am planning to make an espalier Belgian fence/screen from apple trees and maybe a Seckel pear and Aromatnaya quince, I will probably need at least a dozen apple cultivars for that (have: Dorsett Golden, Red Fuji, Newtown Pippin, Pink Lady; want: White Winter Pearmain, Pink Pearl, Magnum Bonum, Cinnamon Spice, Dolgo crabapple). In one quarter of the yard I am also training a Weeping Santa Rosa plum against a fence, and I will plant four other plums, Green Gage, Coe's Golden Drop, Geneva Mirabelle and Cherry Plum Delight - for now I plan to train them as dwarf pyramids. I've also put in a mixed planting in-between, shallots, tomatoes, daylilies, nasturtiums, basil, thyme, feverfew, stevia, wallflower, tuberose, alyssum, johnny-jump-ups, Lebanese zucchini, sunburst squash, painted serpent cucumber, several tea and bourbon roses, dill, bronze fennel, calendula, dahlia Bishop of Landohf, iris, tulips clusiana. I still have to plant: squash butternut, deliciosa, papaya, sunshine hybrid kobota, more heirloom tomatoes, loquat seedling of 'Big Jim,' Babaco papaya, 'Pele's Smoke' sugarcane, Minnesota Midget melon, Mon Cheri melon, some peppers and some other fragrant flowers and herbs (including some milkweed for the butterflies, Salvia clevlandii for the hummers). Somebody gave me seeds for the culinary hyacinth bean brought back from Sri Lanka (these grow big) so I'd like to find a place for those, they make a very tasty dish! In containers I am growing figs Negronne, Panachee, Janice, citrus Meyer Lemon, Cara Cara orange, Robertson Navel orange, Mexican Lime, Dancy mandarin, Owari Satsuma, Moro and Sanguinelli blood oranges and Pink Lemonade lemon, plus a variety of mints, chocolate, Moroccan, peppermint, a few scented leaf pelargoniums, hedychium gingers and other tropicals, some jasmines for tea. In back of my house there is a mature apple tree, a volunteer fig (with a huge breba crop on it now) and a semi-dwarf pear tree (both fruiting). I put in a dwarf walnut Pedro, Garden Prince almond, cherry Lapins, white sapote Suebelle, and avocados Don Gillogly, Holiday, Gwen and Reed. I plan to grow Seminole winter squash up into the apple tree this summer. I've also got a passiflora edulis 'Frederick' that I will train over the west side of my house to keep the sun from turning that side of the house into an oven. I keep thinking, if I get all this "done," by the time I'm 50 I should be able to eat and eat well out of my garden (and not buy but a little of my produce). It took me 47 yrs. to figure this out (grow my own) so I'm trying to make up for lost time!

If you start saving cardboard boxes you can lay down cardboard this fall and have no weeds in the spring- it saved me scads of hand pulling this year. Either leave it in place and mulch over it or toss it in the compost pile in the spring. I've started many beds like this- planting the plants quickly to get them started and finishing up the sod removal/vegetation and mulch removal at a later time. I've always been sorry I did it like this. I have a lot better luck removing the sod before planting the first ornamental plant- weeds are FAR reduced and it doesn't seem like such an uphill battle to keep them out of beds. I spend enough time hand pulling as it is and grass is hard to pull. It's a lovely spot and I see that you enjoy the finest activity a human can partake- sitting back with a dog admiring the garden.