thumb|250px|Robert Hart pictured in his forest garden, July 1997

Robert Adrian de Jauralde Hart (1 April 1913 – 7 March 2000) was an English pioneer of forest gardening in temperate zones. He created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre (500 m²) orchard on his farm. He credits the inspiration for his work to an article by James Sholto Douglas, which was in turn inspired by the work of Toyohiko Kagawa.

At the outbreak of World War II he considered registering as a conscientious objector but changed mind following retreat from Dunkirk in 1940 and enlisted in the Corps of Military Police, later transferring to the Intelligence Corps to work in code-breaking. Hart's forest garden at Wenlock Edge was a vegan organic food production system.

He also began to examine the interactions and relationships that take place between plants in natural systems, particularly in woodland, the climax ecosystem of a cool temperate region such as the British Isles. This led him to evolve the agroforestry concept of the "Forest Garden": Based on the observation that the natural forest can be divided into distinct layers or 'storeys', he developed an existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible landscape consisting of seven dimensions;

  1. A 'canopy' layer consisting of the original mature fruit trees.
  2. A 'low-tree layer' of smaller nut and fruit trees on dwarfing root stocks.
  3. A 'shrub layer' of fruit bushes such as currants and berries.
  4. A 'herbaceous layer' of perennial vegetables and herbs.
  5. A 'ground cover' layer of edible plants that spread horizontally.
  6. A 'rhizosphere' or 'underground' dimension of plants grown for their roots and tubers.
  7. A vertical 'layer' of vines and climbers.

Hart had a vision for the spread of the forest garden throughout even the most heavily built up areas, as he explains:

Later life

Hart died in March 2000 aged 86 and is buried in St Peter's churchyard at Rushbury, Shropshire.

Bibliography

  • Inviolable Hills: Ecology, Conservation and Regeneration of the British Uplands, Stuart & W (1968). .
  • Forest Farming: Towards a Solution to Problems of World Hunger and Conservation, co-authored with James Sholto Douglas, Rodale Press (1976). .
  • Ecosociety: A historical study of ecological man, Natraj (1984). ISBN B0006EHVPW.
  • The Forest Garden, Institute for Social Inventions (1987). .
  • Forest Gardening: Rediscovering Nature and Community in a Post-Industrial Age, Green Books (UK) (1991, 1996 revised). .
  • Can Life Survive?, essay published in Deep Ecology and Anarchism by Freedom Press (1993). .
  • Beyond the Forest Garden, Gaia Books, London (1996). .

References

  • The Garden of Love an article on Robert Hart's garden by Ken Fern of Plants for a Future.
  • Obituary and A forest garden legacy, The Guardian, April 2000
  • Obituary in permaculture magazine
  • Robert Hart and Forest Gardens