How to Plant a Pocket Forest, a Japanese-Inspired Landscaping Trick That Saves Time and Money

Pocket forests are popping up around the U.S. and the world. Inspired by a Japanese landscaping method, these dense, self-sufficient plantings of native trees and shrubs help heal damaged areas—and they can thrive in as little as 200 square feet. The low-maintenance technique can save time and keep gardening expenses down, too.

What is a Pocket Forest?

Think of a pocket forest as a mini-forest. It's a small urban or suburban area where native trees and shrubs are intentionally planted closely together, the way they’d grow in a natural forest. Pocket forests are typically used to restore or improved damaged areas in homes, schools, public parks and other infrastructures.

Also known as tiny forests or Miyawaki forests, these plantings were named for Dr. Akira Miyawaki, a Japanese botanist and environmentalist. He developed a method to reforest or “re-green” urban areas by amending the soil with lots of organic matter, densely planting native species and arranging plants in layers, from shrubs all the way up to tree canopies. After the first few years of watering and weeding, nature took over, and these pocket forests became self-sustaining.

Dr. Miyawaki started planting tiny forests in the 1970s to help combat climate change, replenish depleted soil, increase biodiversity and provide cool, shady microclimates in places where heat builds up, such as around concrete and asphalt. Now, pocket forests are helping people connect to nature and each other when they work together to create them. In just 20 or 30 years, instead of decades, these fast-growing green spaces can maintain themselves and no longer need to be watered, fertilized or sprayed with pesticides.

What are the Benefits of a Pocket Forest?

“Most trees in the suburban-urban landscape are planted individually within a bed of mulch,” says Basil Camu, co-founder of Leaf & Limb, a tree care company in Raleigh, N.C. The way we currently manage urban and suburban landscapes can harm the planet, he explains. “Most homeowners are stuck in a cycle of endless bed maintenance: pulling weeds, replacing mulch, edging and starting over next year. A pocket forest breaks that cycle completely. Instead of planting one nursery tree in a managed bed, you plant a diverse community of native saplings close together. They shade out weeds, build rich soil and largely sustain themselves. The same time and money it takes to install and maintain one traditional tree can give you an entire mini-ecosystem, one that gets more beautiful, more self-sufficient and more alive with birds, pollinators and wildlife every single year.”

Basil says he started experimenting with pocket forests after becoming frustrated with the time and effort needed to maintain beds. He co-founded Project Pando, a non-profit organization that collects seeds from native trees and shrubs, grows them into saplings and gives them away for free. Project Pando aims to inspire people to start similar projects in their communities and cities to help heal the Earth.

Pando is Latin for "I spread," and the project takes its name from a massive Quaking Aspen in Utah. The Utah Pando looks like a grove with over 40,000 tree trunks across 106 acres, but it's a single living organism that clones itself. It's been called the world's largest tree because all the clones connect to one vast, underground root system.

Planting pocket forests has gone global. SUGi is a worldwide organization that partners with local community members and others to re-forest urban areas. To date, they've planted over 260 pocket forests in the U.S., South Africa, Australia and other countries.

How to Plant a Pocket Forest

“The process is simpler than it sounds,” Basil says, and describes the steps to take to plant a pocket forest in any yard or space.

Step one: "Lay cardboard over the planting area to suppress weeds, then cover it with several inches of wood chips," he says.

Step two: "During the dormant season, plant native saplings—a mix of large shade trees, small trees, and shrubs—roughly two feet apart in a random, naturalistic arrangement. No planting plan, no neat rows. Aim for at least 25 native species so you get multiple layers of leaves from the ground up into the canopy."

Step three: "For the first two to four growing seasons, your only real job is pulling out uninvited seedlings that blow or drop in, which runs about five minutes per hundred square feet per session."

Step four: "After that, the pocket forest shades out competition and largely sustains itself. No watering. No fertilizing. No annual bed maintenance. You just watch it grow.”

Pocket Forests and Sustainability

You can find step-by-step instructions, information on selecting species, how to space your plants and more in Basil's book, From Wasteland to Wonder: Easy Ways We Can Help Heal Earth in the Sub/Urban Landscape (Leaf & Limb, March 22, 2024). It's free to download here as a PDF, or you can purchase a hard copy from that link.

There are other ways to help heal the earth, Basil says, like replacing high- maintenance lawns with meadows grown from seeds, avoiding the use of toxic chemicals and providing homes and habitats for creatures like birds, bees and bats. Discover more about rewilding your garden, popular native plants, growing a mini-meadow and how to get your yard wildlife-habitat certified.