The Medicinal Forest Garden Handbook by Anne Stobart

I give this book 9 out of 10 acorns

This is a superb book. Anne Stobart has crafted a beautiful handbook which shares both the breadth and depth of her knowledge in a highly practical and well structured work. To create and manage a medicinal forest garden requires knowledge about a wide range of subjects. Anne is in the unusual position of having expert knowledge of all of them, and each chapter reflects that expertise.

Part One of the book deals with general principles and consists of seven chapters.

1 The medicinal uses of trees and shrubs
2 Designing
3 Establishing and maintaining
4 Propagating and provenance
5 Harvesting
6 Herbal preparations
7 Scaling up the harvest

Throughout Part One are various feature spreads on relevant subjects that complement the chapters. Topics include conserving natural habitats with medicinal plants, forest bathing and deep relaxation in Norway, medicinal trees and water management, designing a medicinal forest garden for a small space, harvesting cramp bark, distilling new flavours and fragrances from nature, intercropping medicinal plants with cherry trees, and my own favourite - transforming a conifer plantation with medicinal trees which is about Anne Stobarts own project, Holt Wood Herbs in Devon, UK. Transforming conifer plantations is a subject which I see being raised frequently on permies.com, and I'm sure many of our members will welcome the opportunity to discuss this with her during the promotion.

Part Two provides an A to Z listing profiling 40 trees and shrubs suitable for a temperate climate, including details relevant to cultivation, advice on parts for harvesting,  possible indications for use, and relevant research examples and other key information.

Anne has studied permaculture and used it to design her project at Holt Wood. Her knowledge and experience of permaculture are apparent in Chapter Two where she talks about designing a medicinal forest garden. I believe that even experienced permaculture designers will have a lot to learn from this chapter as she applies the general principles that we all learn during a permaculture design course beautifully and expertly to the task of helping the reader to design their own medicinal forest garden suited to their own needs and their own situation.

To be honest, each chapter is written to the same standard, which seriously impresses me. For anyone interested in setting up a medicinal forest garden, whatever their current area of expertise is this book will fill in the gaps in their knowledge and enable them to make a success of their venture.

Anne trained as a medical herbalist and managed the programme for professional herbal practitioners at Middlesex University in London. She runs courses on medicinal forest gardens and is a member of the advisory board for the Journal of Herbal Medicine. She has researched the history of herbal medicine for her doctoral thesis and published research articles on historical recipes and herbal medicine. She is continuing her research into agroforestry and permaculture as it relates to herbal medicine.

I give this book 10 out of 10 acorns.

The Medicinal Forest Garden Handbook provides everything you’d need to know about growing medicinal plants in a cold/temperate climate forest garden (or even outside of forest garden settings), - from information about the benefits of forest gardens and how to design one, to the medicinal plants themselves, and making herbal preparations.

Tables are provides for many useful plants, their soil needs, their medicinal properties, which parts are used, their height, climate zone, sun and shade needs - it is very thorough and helps a lot with designing a forest garden. The tables for plants for acidic and alkaline soils are very helpful.

Beautiful pictures are provided throughout the book, and also spotlights on medicinal forest gardens in Europe so that we can learn from many different forest gardeners and get lots of ideas for our own gardens, including one section about transforming a conifer plantation into a medicinal tree garden. Another one that especially stands out is about working in a small space. Each of the different gardens looked at has something unique about it, so that the reader can learn and apply relevant things to their own project.

All the steps of establishing a forest garden are covered, from site preparation, clearing, safe working practises, establishing plants and working with mycorrizas. Aspects of maintenance are covered such as tool choice, soil improvement and ground cover, maintaining tree health, dealing with tree damage and pests, and monitoring the garden.

The chapter on propagation is amazingly helpful, with a table provided about which plants can be grown from seed, and special treatments (such as scarifying) that they might need. Instructions are given for propagating plants from cuttings, seeds, and other methods, and another helpful table is provided about which part of the plant to take the cuttings from, and what time of year. Information about saving and processing seeds is also provided.

The harvesting chapter has another helpful table, of which season to harvest which plants (or parts of plants in). This helps with designing the forest garden for easy access to these plants at these times, and also helps as a quick reference to look at when we’re wondering what to harvest. Also provided in the harvesting chapter are instructions for processing, drying, and storing herbs.

The next chapter goes into making your own herbal remedies - this really completes the book for someone new to herbal medicine, and provides new recipes and techniques for people with some experience. I like that this chapter includes general methods to use, as well as specific recipes using plants that grow in a cold-temperate climate forest garden.

The next chapter is all about scaling up the forest garden to provide yields for a business. There’s lots of ideas, plus information about possible legal considerations.

The Medicinal Forest Garden Handbook is divided into two parts, the first covers the chapters and information that I’ve written about above, and the second part of the book is all about the plants themselves. I greatly appreciate the holistic focus, where all uses of a plant are looked at, not just the medicinal. It’s wonderful to see all the information about each plant in the one place - we can learn how to identify in the wild, how to grow it (including where it grows, pests it’s prone to, propagation, and harvesting), and also the medicinal use, including detailed descriptions of uses, traditional medicinal, and clinical applications, preparation and dosage, key constituents, commercial potential, and safety.

The entire book is beautifully illustrated with full-colour photos, which helps a lot with plant identification, learning herbal preparation and processing techniques, and as inspiration for creating beautiful forest gardens.

I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about medicinal plants and how to grow them, and anyone interested in growing medicinal plants in a forest garden setting.

I'd just like to share a couple of sample pages from the book to give you all a chance to get a good 'feel' of what it's all about. Though even these two pages don't really do justice to the scope of this book as it covers so much.

Can someone who has read the book please elaborate a bit on the climate range covered? Specifically I’m in the upper Midwest- zone 4. Do you think there is a good variety of plants covered that would work in my region? Thank you!

Hi, I wrote the Medicinal Forest Garden Handbook so can tell you that the Part 2 Directory part does include profiles of trees and shrubs fitting into a range of USDA zones 2-8. When selecting examples I focused on plants that I know well from UK and USA experience. However, please note that this is a selection of the many many species of medicinal plants so will not provide you with an ultimate list of medicinal plants that you can grow. Rather the focus of Part 1 is on design, establishment, cultivation, harvesting, storage and use/sale of medicinal plants including trees and shrubs. You can see the Directory listing if you 'look inside' on Amazon.com. If you want a lengthy listing based on a search for zone and purpose then I recommend the Plants For A Future database at https://pfaf.org/user/Default.aspx The book is aimed at people who are keen to grow herbal medicine permaculture style and/or may have an interest in developing as smallscale business, hope this helps, Best wishes, Anne

Anne Stobart wrote:Hi, I wrote the Medicinal Forest Garden Handbook so can tell you that the Part 2 Directory part does include profiles of trees and shrubs fitting into a range of USDA zones 2-8. When selecting examples I focused on plants that I know well from UK and USA experience. However, please note that this is a selection of the many many species of medicinal plants so will not provide you with an ultimate list of medicinal plants that you can grow. Rather the focus of Part 1 is on design, establishment, cultivation, harvesting, storage and use/sale of medicinal plants including trees and shrubs. You can see the Directory listing if you 'look inside' on Amazon.com. If you want a lengthy listing based on a search for zone and purpose then I recommend the Plants For A Future database at https://pfaf.org/user/Default.aspx The book is aimed at people who are keen to grow herbal medicine permaculture style and/or may have an interest in developing as smallscale business, hope this helps, Best wishes, Anne

Thank you Anne!

I ordered the book.  Really looking forward to fitting more medicinals into my young food forest.  

Burra Maluca wrote:I'd just like to share a couple of sample pages from the book to give you all a chance to get a good 'feel' of what it's all about. Though even these two pages don't really do justice to the scope of this book as it covers so much.

Thank you, Burra, for giving us another glimpse into this rather amazing looking book. And thanks to Anne for writing what looks like a veritable mine of information for those of us who choose to take some responsibility for our own health - especially in these times when getting to see a doctor is tricky!
We live in Mid-Wales, at 1000ft, and growing some stuff is trickier than in Cornwall where we moved from. It's also much later ;-) Looking forward to a copy of this book.

My son and his family just moved to  some lovely land in MO. They have been busy trying to minimize invasive plants and I think they would love to see these ideas for their forested areas. I am sure that their local extension service has a long list of native herbs and plants.

What a helpful find! I have recently committed to a later-in-life mission to conserve/steward/learn from/create with and eventually share with the public a 15-acre piece of land near the coast of Lake Michigan.  Motherspark is aimed at providing a place for people to heal, be inspired creatively and connect and learn directly from unsullied nature and the trees especially. The process of preparing this place and integrating the ancient knowledge and recent science regarding the interdependence of species (while maintaining my work as a tree sculptor) is often overwhelming, so finding others who have traveled a similar path is heartening.
Anne Stobart’s book seems (according to the reviews and sample pages I’ve read)  to be full of practical expertise, some of which I hope to incorporate into my site.
    Others’ questions regarding the book and its application to USA planting zones, native plant enhancement, invasive plants  and subsequent answers/discussion have already affirmed the value of acquiring this new book while I am still in the initial planning stages for my forest garden endeavors. Brava!

This sounds awesome! Anne your book is a welcome tome to the many that have come before your contribution!

I am currently in the process of ordering a whole library of new books from the permaculture  shop courtesy of the permaculture magazine run by and edited  Maddy Harland.
I will be sure to add your book to the order if it is actually available on there as I am in the process and the intial stages of also setting up and growing a food forest for both my own livelihood and that of the wider community once it starts establishing and becoming fully prodcutive.

I only have access to 4acres though and thats 4 acres of already established woodland with mostly pioneer birch, some bigger broadleaves and then undergrowth which has actually flourished since I processed many of the fallen or dead and dying birch for my client. The canopy has opened up nicely and allowed for the much needed sunlight to hit the woodland floor, still a work in process as I hopte to allow for much more trees to be felled and processed, some will be left for habitat, some will be left for tapping for birch water(no thinner than 25cm)

I think I am going to get a lot of good and sound advice from your book, hopefully it applies to the whole Northern Hemisphere and not just USA? I live in the UK.
Either way even from just that screenshot it looks very promising!

All the best

Michael

Hello Mick and Marcia, glad to hear of your projects getting going. The Medicinal Forest Garden Handbook is based largely on experience as a UK herbalist and from developing Holt Wood in Devon, UK. But since Western herbalists use a number of North American herbs as well as European ones I have included both in the book! Lots of US trees and shrubs do well in UK and vice versa. There are also quite a few Asian plants of considerable medicinal interest such as forsythia, ginkgo and magnolia, included. An oddity here in UK that these are available for ornamental use in garden centres, rarely do we see the original species available. It is really down to what sort of environment you have as to which medicinal plants will do well. I think it is great if you can offer a variety of situations for plants as this extends the variety possible, especially trees. For example we have willow and cramp bark loving our moist meadow area, hawthorn lime and birch do well in most spaces with light, ginkgo is happy on a slope, witch hazel fits great along a woodland ride edge, and so on. Our experience has been that the forest garden is incredibly productive, so size is not necessarily an issue, perhaps the main thing is to be able to harvest and preserve plant material for year round use. The book is available from Permanent Publications in UK and Chelsea Green in USA as well as main booksellers, very best wishes, Anne