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In part based on the model of the Kerala n Home Gardens , temperate-climate forest gardening was pioneered by the late Robert Hart on his one eighth of an acre (500 m&2) plot at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire .

Robert began the project over thirty years ago with the intention of providing a healthy and therapeutic environment for himself and his brother Lacon, born with severe Learning Disabilities .

Starting as relatively conventional smallholders, Robert soon discovered that maintaining large annual can be divided into distinct layers or "storeys", he used Inter-cropping to develop an existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible Polyculture landscape consisting of seven levels.


WOODLAND GARDENING

Ken Fern and Plants For A Future adopted the name "Woodland Gardening".
A key critique of Hart's system was in the selection of plants used.
Most of the traditional crops grown today such as Carrot s are sun loving plants
not well selected for the more shady forest garden system. Fern's idea was that
for a successful temperate forest garden a wider range of shade tolerant
plants would need to be used. To this end Plants For A Future compiled a plant database suitable for such a system.

The Agroforestry Research Trust has a 2 acre forest garden, next to the Schumacher College in Dartington , Devon . It makes heavy use of Ground Cover plants to restrict the growth of weeds.

There has been some criticism as to whether the Home Gardens system developed in the Tropics are a suitable design for use in a Temperate climate.

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