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Now my Patrick Whitefield book has arrived, I'm looking into Forest Gardening a bit more deeply. It certainly seems a good way for us to grow fuel for the woodburners while also having a 'useful' garden space around it. So many thanks to Clara who first suggested it.

I am still getting to grips with the method and am just trying to plan where things could go. I think we would probably start with a few small areas of forest garden dotted around, with a view to gradually joining them up. Our immediate space to cover - once the farmer has harvested his wheat - is about 3600m, but there's also a patch of unused rough weedy ground of around 3000m that we'd like some trees on as well. I think either of these sizes are just too big for us (complete beginners and short of funds!) to try and plan in one go.

After other advice on this wonderful board (and also taking into account the young trees we can scrounge) we're looking at a mix of ash, willow, sweet chestnut, (which we'll need to buy) and hazel, sycamore and beech (which we can scrounge) as our coppicing trees. And I'm thinking about planting these approx 3m apart from each other.

But am I right in thinking that because we'll be coppicing these trees - perhaps on an approx 8 year rotation - then we will need some permanent 'canopy' standard trees too, to eventually grow above the coppicing trees?

We have a few very young lime trees, and a few very young oaks. Are these the right sort of thing to consider using as canopy trees? Or are they so big as mature standard trees, that we should use them to coppice instead? Patrick Whitefield seems to suggest that they are so big that they should not be used. But they're free trees so we would like to use them.

To give you the overall picture, we have one mature lime on the plot (beautiful!), two mature horse chestnuts, and a couple of rather tatty tall pines. A mature mixed hedgerow on one side, and a 15 year ish hedgerow at the bottom, which looks like blackthorn and hawthorn interspersed.

Other canopy trees I like the sound of (from the book) are silver birch, medlar and rowan, so I would plan to buy perhaps a couple of each of these. We do have some very old fruit trees dotted around in the 3000m rough patch, and so would these be good to try and cosset back to production and use as a starting point for canopy? Or better to be coppiced straight away as firewood, and the stumps left to see what happens?

(We have a separate approx 2000m orchard with around 25 not quite so old (apparently) fruit trees - still waiting to see what will happen in there but I'm assuming we'll get plenty of fruit to be going on with)

Once I get an idea of what's useable as the canopy, then I can start planning the number and position of the forest garden areas.

I would then like to put an 'aggressive' ground cover plant in around our coppicing trees, as we're not going to be able to afford to buy a big amount of shrubs or bushes just yet ... I have a few around, and my Mum can give me cuttings, but I thought it would be a good idea to be proactive about putting something in, before the 'weeds' start to move in. Does anyone have any suggestions for what would be a good thing to plant?

Does this seem to be a reasonable solution to getting the forest garden started, with a focus on coppicing trees? Patrick Whitefield doesn't seem to have much to say on coppicing, as he seems to be focusing on food.

Sorry for all the questions - it all seems a bit of a huge undertaking, at the moment ... but very exciting.

I know so little about this kind of thing that I hesitate to reply. However, one thing I am sure of is that oak, lovely tree that it is, is incredilby slow in growing - it would take next door to eternity to get it up to canopy height.

Coppiced woods usually have a number of slower growing trees dotted among the main crop such as oak or chestnut. I think you could get away with one or two such biggies to really add diversity and potential value to your proposed woodland (big, straight, mature oaks and chestnuts can sell well).

With the older fruit trees it might be an idea to try hard pruning first and then leaving them for a season to see how they respond before deciding to take them down to stump level, that way you hedge your bets.

Ground cover may be more problematic as brambles for example love to take over woodlands (although even they have their uses!). Remember that your choice of aggresive ground cover might also prove to be a pain to remove when you want to use the understory for planting. Mulching heavily may be one answer, I know it's what Robert Hart used to do to keep things under control. It also had the added bonus of providing a moisture retaining protective layer for the young trees & shrubs while they established themselves.