Comment by lordswork
6 days ago
For those wondering, the Miyawaki method differs from normal planting by doing the following:
- heavily pre-treat soil with organic matter (simulating forest floor)
- plant a mix of native plants that will make up canopy, tree, sub-tree, and shrub layers
- densely planting plants (3-5 saplings / m^2)
- heavy mulching after planting (weed suppression, moisture control, nutrients)
This encourages rapid growth into a biodiverse dense forest much faster than standard planting techniques.
Interesting, there's some re-greening projects in Canada that do something similar with planting a shrub/forest floor layer. Apparently the trick for doing it at scale is to cut up and transplant sections from the space beside highways that would be cleared anyways.
It's the density that is counter intuitive for me and the key takeaway. The others aspects of the method seem pretty intutive.
It's counter intutitive because a lot of gardening or agriculture or artificial horticulture in general is very spaced out intentionally for access for humans to care and maintain.
In hindsight though it does make sense, the density stops certain fauna and flora from competing making the ring fenced area immediatley established.