Creating Your Own Back Yard Eden

Designing the Ultra Low-Maintenance Mandala of Fruiting Trees and Shrubs for Eden

Over the past year, I've had the great pleasure of working with a wonderful family who live in the wild woods of Sussex.

It was a special connection we made right from the beginning when I met them through catering at Green Earth Awakening Festival in Somerset last September.

I was truly touched at how they invited me into their home and treated me like one of their family through the entire process of designing and planting their forest garden, and also since then, simply as a friend.

These are the kind of exchanges I love, as I look to forge new models of how we can work together meaningfully - where money is a tertiary priority to the mutual feeling of gratitude, generosity and kindness we generate between us, and of course to the benefit that we are providing for the Earth as a whole. Through creating such beautiful natural sanctuaries that not only inspire our Hearts but nourish our bodies with a constant supply of lush organic produce too...

Here is what they had to say about working together:

Having epilepsy I have wanted an easy ‘Eden’ to feed my vegan husband and four kids. I looked everywhere for the solution and one day ‘tripped’ over Charlie while he was feeding hundreds of people with plants I’d never heard of. For the rest of our time there we ate all of our meals with him and I dreamily sat and looked through pictures of his work.

It had to be Charlie and no one else! Such gentle energy made it easy to learn from him and that Autumn we planted our 132 tree Forest Garden, mandala shaped Eden.

Charlie’s knowledge gave support to each tree as he carefully planned their homes and neighbouring plants and though I have a secret dislike of gardening this was a pleasure, and a rare experience of ‘the now’ as I listened and learned and forgot myself all the time wondering if his experience and time spent with his plant family had made him the gentle and wild teacher he is.

Charlie, I’m sure is from somewhere else (!) and brings back with him such magic. Apart from being the individual and teacher we loved as a family to learn from, he did what he said he would do, though more and better, unexpectedly better something that doesn’t tend to happen so much anymore.

Charlie made it clear for me to remember what to do after he went and now we have a magical Forest Garden to bring up and enjoy for life.

Thank you Charlie Wild.

You are a truly gifted teacher with immense knowledge and none of us can wait for any excuse to have you back!

Thank you so much too, my Wild Family! May your garden thrive and feed your children's children and may this inspire many many more happy exchanges like this too...

 

Saving Rare Apple Varieties - across Europe

I'm on the search for rare and endangered fruit varieties - especially apples!

I'm currently hanging out in Latvia which I hope will be my new home.

The land here is so pristine, so wild and undisturbed, compared to 90% of the rest of Europe, that I feel ready to put down roots here.

Yet even in this unspoilt corner of Europe, rampant globalisation and exploitation of resources still threaten.

Foreign logging companies buy up large areas of forest or undervalued land to plant monoculture forestry plantations.

I'm horrified to here of the orchards that sometimes get bulldozed in the process for 'progress'.

The real wealth of resources is being forgotten and destroyed. Latvia has a great treasure trove of old fruit varieties, many of them probably not documented, and most of them would have never have been trialled elsewhere. Huge potential, diversity and cultural heritage are now at risk from extinction.

We must act now to save our old fruit varieties from disapearing forever. All over Europe the situation is similar. In the rush to modernise, nations have forgotten the jackpot they're already sitting on.

If you have an old fruit variety that you value and would like to see live on, I will work to try to help you preserve it.

Simply send me enough graft wood / scion wood of your chosen variety to graft two trees. One of the resulting trees I will add to my sanctuary for further trialling. The other I will send back to you, to plant in your own garden or with friends, family or neighbours.

This way the variety will live on in at least two different locations, giving it a very good chance of long term survival. I would also hope to continue propagating from successful stock to multiply them further to be planted across wider areas of Europe.

If this sounds like a good deal to you, please get in touch and I will do my best to help.

Just mail symbiosisnursery@gmail with the story of your chosen cultivar and I will send back instructions on how best to get the scion wood to me.

Thank you. Let us act now to preserve the wealth of diversity that our children's children deserve to inherit.

Let us keep them in our mind and heart, and our Earth will surely prevail in supporting a healthy environment for the next generations to enjoy...

Another unidentified early Latvian garden variety. Very sweet, and these were ready from mid - July, just two months after blossoming!!