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...