Toronto Leslie Lookout Park | ?m | ?s | CreateTO | CCxA

les-slip-06.jpg


les-slip-07.jpg


les-slip-08.jpg
 
Seeing this thread updated reminded me.........

I know some here have taken an interest in the planting technique, known 'Miyawaki forest'

So I wanted to show a real world example of an older planting, maybe......I'd be guessing here, but lets say 15 years ago.

This is in Taylor Creek Park

DSC02930.jpg


These trees were very short when they went in.......maybe ~2ft, 3ft tops, the median height is probably around 10ft now, but the peak height is closer to 16ft.

As you can see these have taken awhile to establish, but they are looking fairly decent. Though many will die young, which is an intentional point of this type of planting.

By planting very densely, when the trees are small, they compete for resources, including sunlight, this drives the strongest trees to be taller, sooner. They put their energy disproportionately into vertical growth, vs horizontal growth.

This can, give you the feeling of a forest a bit sooner than would otherwise be the case.

However, the trade off is that as the trees get bigger, there isn't enough room or soil for all of them, and those that didn't grow as quickly will also be shaded out by those that did.

As a result, mortality can be as high as 85% at maturity (or only 15% of what you planted survived). I should say though, mortality in my experience isn't quite that high.

*****

One more note about the example above, by typical Miyawaki standards, it's been a bit of a slow grower. Thing is, in a proper example of this technique, you come back and do maintenance (fertilization/mulching); watering if needed, for each of the first few years.

That was not done in the above example. The site was planted and then left alone.

I'm not sure what the plan calls for with Leslie Lookout.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top