Japan’s Tiny Forests are Thriving in Britain - here’s why

[ryandepp]

The thing with the Miyawaki method is that the intense competition for light does lead to fast growth, but at the sacrifice of girth and structural integrity. They grow very tall but are thin and risk breaking upon strong gales of wind or some other disturbance

[aidanfurst]

Living in Australia you really get to see this in full force as a natural occurrence. Most of our forests have evolved to regenerate after fire. The seeds of most native species actively require smoke to germinate, and will sit dormant for decades until a massive forest fire rips through, destroying every living plant in the forest. Then, every single seed which fell over the past decade will all germinate at the same time, and the speed at which they regrow the entire forest is astonishing.

You can see this in Victoria's southeast, where enormous stretches of forest were obliterated by fire in 2019, and have now been populated by five year old forests which have trees that would take 30 years to reach that size if planted on their own. Five more years of growth and you'll never know there was a fire in that area.

[wilsusonnect]

Using competitor plants is widely practiced in forestry. A friend of mine is in university for forestry and they've got whole computer simulations that predict growth depending on environmental factors such as soil and climate, as well as the competitor plants.
Growing trees is a whole strategy, for example, one option is to scrap the competitor trees once they've done their job and mulch them, then use that mulch as fertilizer for the ones you actually want.

[Dawlish]

I have one of these tiny forests near my house in North-west England on a park. Kids planted the trees like 15 years ago on a school trip, in a hexagon shape, and the forest is quite dense now. Looks really cool and dog walkers love it

[bluedragon]

In the short term with the Japanese method you get quick growing low laying dense shrubs that will not be good for the long term when they fight for the same resources in a confined space, the traditional method will yield better results over many decades as the few plants/trees will have a area that is for them alone only once they are grown for over a decade will they then fight for resources.

[edithkaplan]

when i look at the comments I can see that the short video was not very explicit about the soil preparation in the Miyawaki planting method. Since the soil is studied and then prepared that it perfectly mimics the forest floor where the trees and plants (which are all native to that particular prepared habitat) are then densly planted. It is a mimic what would happen in undisturbed nature and there is competition going on.... however, it has shown that these forests are then very resistant to high winds and disasters.

[andrewbreding]

I think it's rather smart how they planted in a half pie shape. People underestimate border interactions in experiments. This shape gives you three or more characters of border. Round, pointed, and straight. A circle would give you one big round

[johnprince]

I don’t think this experiment answers the question of whether it’s the preparation of the ground or the planting close together of the trees that leads to the success. It would be interesting to see a similar experiment with both grounds to be prepared and half close together half separated.

[ilikelampshades]

It's really good when young but they struggle to thrive in maturity using this method.

[Yesievenloveyou]

Amazon! Saw one in Glasgow and it seemed to be thriving. I love the idea for microhabitats for rewilding the senses of city folk as well

[Ry-nxfh]

This works in part because Britain is moist year round but these mini forests trap more moisture and as a byproduct the surrounding area becomes more lush as well.

[charlesissleepy]

The Miyawaki method allows for interaction in the soil rhizosphere, and accelerates growth via competition (quite a significant percentage of the planted species die before to being established). The downside is cost and complexity.
It would be interesting to develop a protocol by which interspersed Miyawaki plantings could act as seeds or nuclei for reforestation (by seed distribution or via roots).

[MsLisaLisa]

At first I i thought "i wonder if the taller trees would have smaller and fragile trunks"

But then I thought about it so more and realized it doesnt really matter. The cluster method is probably the closest to what happens in nature since plants usually drop their seeds close to them (unless carried away by wind, water or animals). So they're used to competing. And when plants die, they enrich the soil for the next generation of plants. So this method makes a lot of sense.

I've been dabbling in "chaos gardening" since I'm lazy and hate thinning plants. I'm always surprised of the good yield, but I think I know why it works. Pretty cool.

[GravitasZero]

“Unprepared ground”
Oh hey, I think I managed to discover the reason why they take so long to grow compared to those that got the ground enriched

[Noni_knits]

With the Japanese method, the trees will provide a lot of shade and more roots and deeper roots to bring up nutrients for diverse plants underneath to establish before some of the densely packed trees naturally start to die off, leaving a diverse, well establish open forest

[AdamMPick]

People saying this is not producing good trees: they have been doing this for a while, because they almost erradicated their forrests in the past. The main goal is not big trees, the main goal is more woods.

[TheKitsuneOnihane]

Both methods are completely valid. It just depends what your goal is. Speed vs resiliency. With my own gardens and propagations, I will employ a mix. For plants that can take the stress, i will employ the denser growing of Japanese to encourage competing with high nutrients and faster growth. Once I'm happy I'll switch to more controlled growth. Every plant is different and there's no "best" method. I've always said "plants are made of magic and will prove you wrong." Do your research. I promise it'll help.

[Engineer-Machinist]

It has more to do with microbes being in greater abundance in the closer planting than competing for sunlight. Roots feed microbes carbs, and in turn, the microbes feed the roots nutrients

[DaisyDutches]

I feel like this mimics a natural burn like what would happen in a forest fire. And the close growth of trees would not only help keep moisture in the soil longer, shade it from sun, and help the micro decomposition cycle start quicker than bare ground like the traditional methods.

I can see the side of the traditional method, but the nature of forest deco quest is usually more naturally competitive, like the Japanese method. And that might be why the trees are responding to it more vigorously.

This is speculation from someone not educated in the field at all, beyond a few YouTube videos and a biology course decades ago. But it has me curious.

[MrStensnask]

The Miyawaka method doesn't mimic natural vegetation succession. It creates a "forced" ecosystem and will never reach peak biodiversity for several reasons (tree won't get really big and old and virtually no light will reach the forest floor which means no woodland wild flowers can establish themselves