Types of work in which I engage
The apogee of naturalistic planting
Design & education
- Wildlife & food forest garden designer — the overarching description of what I do, a combination of wildlife, ornamental and edible garden design.
- Site surveys — observing & gathering data to inform the design. Critical.
- CAD design — fluent in QCAD software.
- Landscaping — Working closely with trusted partners, I can organise all aspects of hard landscaping, through to plant costings, purchase and planting.
- Design sketches — Incredibly useful for conveying spatial sense of a design.
Line sketch for Clifftop Gardens
- Workshops — Monthly YouTube livestream, numerous online courses, & both online & in-person workshops. Apparently I am enthusiastic and engaging!
- Schools — I really enjoy engaging with students of all ages, to explain the philosophy, principles and practise of forest gardening. I used to teach graphic design at University West of England.
- Talks — Online & in-person talks on a range of gardening subjects to gardening clubs & environmental organisations.
- Tours — Pre-Covid, I ran regular tours of our forest garden. Hopefully, we will be opening our doors again in 2022.
A forest garden is a way to engage people with their habitat
People I have worked with
- Birmingham & Black Country Wildlife Trust — ran a bespoke online forest garden workshop for staff at their Ecopark site.
- Ddwylan Primary School — creation of wildlife & food forest garden.
- National Forest Gardening Scheme — talks on forest garden design, plus helping with website.
- The Peoples’ Orchard — tree planting with a National Lottery funded project around the village of St Dogmaels
- Martin Hayes — Co-Chair of Gloucestershire Orchard Trust, helped with pruning clients’ orchards.
- Sarah Wilson — Podcaster, garden designer. Partner with the Garden Wild project to promote the use of UK native wild flowers in horticulture.
- Peat Free April — UK campaign for horticulture to go peat free. Maintain website.
Jake in full forest garden flow