2024 September 26 Miyawaki Mini-Forest Planting
As soon as I learned what a Miyawaki Mini-Forest was, it was added to the top of my bucket list. I couldn’t believe that after a week on the job as a Horticultural Assistant at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, I heard plans that we would be helping to plant a Miyawaki Mini-Forest! Thursday, September 26th was the day, and I was happy to rearrange my work days to be part of it!
What is a Miyawaki Mini Forest?
Akira Miyawaki was a Japanese Ecological Botanist who studied old-growth forests, especially where they were preserved near shrines. He created an ecologically sound urban reforestation method to solve the problems of Japan’s rapid urban development. The idea is to densely plant native trees that mimic native forests in an area as small as two parking spaces. Attention is paid to trees of every level from canopy to understory. The dense planting encourages competition and discourages nonnative species from taking over, resulting in rapid growth. The planting is typically done by nearby schoolchildren and community members.
The Zoo Mini Forest
Paul Abbey, of Rooted in Trees, led this project with meticulous organization. Paul went to the Urban Community School with members of the Zoo Horticulture Department to talk to 8th graders about the project and demonstrate tree planting. He sourced over 800 small native trees from growers in 5 states. They arrived the day before planting when he set up a grid and system for labeling and placing the trees 3-4 per meter. We followed his coding system to lay out the trees and planted some of the bare-root ones to ensure their survival overnight.
The next day, students arrived as well as teams from Holden Arboretum’s tree corps. Executives from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo led a short ceremony and the Zoo Horticulture staff led teams of students in planting after a quick planting reminder by a Holden volunteer. After two hours, the project was complete! We will only need to do some watering and weeding for a couple of years until the site is established. We are also going to put in a fence.
The kids were completely involved in the process. As they were planting I heard comments about how they could show off this forest tears from now, even maybe to their kids. Other kids went through and gave names to all the saplings. They were also excited that this was the first mini-forest in a US zoo!
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