“The forest is the root of all life; it is the womb that revives our biological instincts, that deepens our intelligence and increases our sensitivity as human beings,”

~ Akira Miyawaki, Japanese botanist and plant ecologist

Our 1872 house sits on an old lot in an old neighborhood in a small town sandwiched between the Denver metro area and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Like many of our neighbors, we haven’t done much to improve the lot — replaced a few trees, moved some of the native Chokecherry bushes and Lilacs, and upgraded most of the flower beds. We have added some garden boxes, reseeded some grassy areas and generally tried to clean it up without creating too much change. Many of the plants are as old as the house and the neighborhood.

Our next-door neighbor decided to upgrade our adjoining fence, replacing the old wire fence that had been there for, probably, sixty or more years. We agreed to split the effort with them, and a major part of it was clearing the fence line of all the old growth. Numerous vines and other plants had grown into the fence wires and the edge of the lilac bed had to be cleared out, but it was practical to jog the new fence around the three trees along the fence line. Much of the work was done by a contractor.

That project was so successful that we subsequently decided to replace the equally aged fence across the back of our lot, along the alley. This area was truly wild and rife with plants of all kinds — particularly after this year’s unusually rainy Spring. The Blackberries that I had transplanted from a friend’s house a couple of decades ago were the most formidable, but the Virginia Creeper and Chokecherries also made it interesting, as did the forest of suckers surrounding the two Green Ash trees on the fence line. The contractor started by bringing in a big dumpster for all the brush and was able to clear it out pretty effectively.

Aside from not wanting to harm the trees or eliminate vegetation needlessly, I was concerned about our resident bunny family. They have a burrow beneath the garden shed at the back of the lot and hang out in the vegetation along the back fence. I got a bit of a crooked smile from the contractor when I explained that they were to be careful not to hurt any of the bunnies who may be disturbed by the brush clearing.

Sometimes it isn’t just the major, big projects that help the environment. Climate reporter Cara Buckley notes the international efforts directed at small reforestation projects. “Known variously as tiny forests, mini forests, pocket forests and, in the United Kingdom, “wee” forests, … they use a Japanese method of creating fast-growing native forests.”

“Healthy woodlands absorb carbon dioxide, clean the air and provide for wildlife. But these tiny forests promise even more … They can grow as quickly as ten times the speed of conventional tree plantations, enabling them to support more birds, animals and insects, and to sequester more carbon, while requiring no weeding or watering after the first three years, their creators said … Perhaps more important for urban areas, tiny forests can help lower temperatures in places where pavement, buildings and concrete surfaces absorb and retain heat from the sun.”

A tiny forest “… is part of a sweeping movement that is transforming dusty highway shoulders, parking lots, schoolyards and junkyards worldwide. Tiny forests have been planted across Europe, in Africa, throughout Asia and in South America, Russia and the Middle East. India has hundreds, and Japan, where it all began, has thousands.”

“This isn’t just a simple tree-planting method,” said Katherine Pakradouni, a native plant horticulturist who oversaw the forest planting in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park. “This is about a whole system of ecology that supports all manner of life, both above and below ground.”

It’s a small step, but won’t be too long before our new fences will support the regrowing vegetation. The chaotic tangle of growth may resume, hopefully outside the fence. I’m sure that most of it will come back and I’m particularly interested in the blackberries.

And yes, and the bunnies!

Additional information:

Cara Buckley, Tiny Forests with Big Benefits, August 24, 2023, New York Times