We are in the process of creating our forest garden in Charleston, on the West Coast. It is a very interesting microclimate close to the sea, protected by the Paparoas – best described as mild temperatures and heavy rain. When the time comes, we plan to offer stand-out forest gardening / agroforestry plants we have met on our travels, for sale and work on research (both existing research and new research) that benefits all forest gardeners.
I’ve been growing plants on and off for most of my life, ever since moving to New Zealand at the age of 7. First garden flowers and ferns, then carnivorous plants and later cacti and medicinal plants before finally agroforestry and native plants.
I have lived and worked in England for three and a half years, as a software engineer. I spent most weekends walking in woodlands, fields, hills and mountains, on coasts and even rock climbing – learning how to identify the plants and understand what made these natural systems work. We then moved to Vancouver in Canada and there developed a serious interest in solving ecosystem problems with sustainable solutions. We have visited ecosystems, forest gardens and orchards all over the Pacific North-West, UK and Netherlands and are now setting up in Charleston, New Zealand.
– Jon Colyer
As someone who was until a few years ago relatively new to growing plants, I have been wowed by the concept of agroforestry. Who knew there were so many edible perennials and tree crops out there?! Then to follow nature’s principles, instead of fighting succession, all made so much sense to me. I would especially love to one day use edible flowers from our own garden in my other passion: cake decorating – they will bring color to both our garden and the cakes!
The last few years have been a steep learning curve for me – learning from Jon, reading, visiting gardens, food forests, and orchards, talking to ‘plant people’ in many different places in the world, and of course growing plants for our own food forest. Learning from everyone’s views on growing plants, combined with my professional background in Genetics research, has opened my eyes to the world of plants!
– Maureen Colyer