Medicinal Forest Garden Trust

The Medicinal Forest Garden Trust has charitable aims of promoting education and research all about sustainable cultivation of healing plants, especially medicinal trees and shrubs. Many herbal medicines today are derived from wild harvesting but habitats are severely disrupted by change of use to agriculture or environmental disasters. The Trust has a website and blog with advice and information to those seeking to grow medicinal plants including trees and shrubs. Online courses on medicinal forest gardening are offered. Further consultancy advice on design can be arranged.

Medicinal trees and shrubs are under-recognised for their valuable contributions of bark, flowers, fruit, leaves and more - and both native and introduced plants can be successfully grown in temperate contexts. There is so much more that we can do with healing plants using permaculture design principles to grow and harvest them. Many traditional uses of plants in herbal medicine are based on longstanding experience. Modern research often bears out these observations of benefits in the past, showing that plant constituents provide opportunities to promote health and alleviate common complaints. Herbs and perennial woody medicinals offer additional benefits of biodiversity, environmental support and resilience. Through the Medicinal Forest Garden Trust we want to develop greater understanding of these possibilities and encourage more growers and users! You can visit the website and sign up for a newsletter.