Hi, everybody. This is Joe Lample, the Joe behind Joe Gardner, and welcome to The Joe Gardner Show. If you're a longtime listener to the podcast, you hear me on occasion call out a first-of-its-kind podcast. And considering I've done 410 consecutive weeks of podcast, including this one, when I do something completely new, it's worth a mention. Well, today it's a double mention for first time evers on this podcast.
The first of the two is that we're talking about Milwaukee Forest. Perhaps you've heard of this, but I would venture to say for most of you listening to this, it's a new term. And I think you will be very glad to learn. more about this fascinating and slightly controversial reforesting technique. The second first for this podcast series is that my guest today, who did his master's thesis on the Miyawaki forest concept, has the same name as mine.
And I'm not talking about Joe, but Lample. Yes, our guest today is Andrew Lample, and he will be filling us in on everything to know about the Milwaukee Forest concept. which in a nutshell is a way to rapidly grow forest in a fraction of the time using dense planting techniques for fast-growing saplings and more. And Andrew will fill us in on all the details. And a bit more about Andrew.
While I'm not sure if we are related, when you learn about what he does for a living, along with someone who got his master's degree in sustainability and did his thesis on a forest, how could we not be related? Andrew is the Climate Toolkit Manager at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And in his role, Andrew oversees the Climate Toolkit Initiative, a collaborative network of over 200 museums, zoos and gardens worldwide.
all committed to proactively addressing climate change within their operations and communities. I am excited to share my conversation with Andrew with you today as we learn more about this interesting technique for rapidly reforesting land from large parcels on corporate campuses to the smallest of urban settings.
So let's get into that conversation with my guest and possibly long lost cousin I never knew I had, Andrew Lample. And as we do, thanks to our sponsors for today's episode, Milorganite and Territorial Seed. If you're looking for a non-burning, slow-release, organically derived source of nitrogen fertilizer that's great for your lawn and landscape and anywhere you need a little extra nitrogen boost, Malorganite is a great product for that.
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Quantities are limited for each ship date and they go fast. So head over to TerritorialSeed.com slash Joe for a 10% discount on Territorial Seed transplants and all other garden items too. Andrew, the guy with a funny last name. What's that last name again? That would be Lample. I can't believe it. I don't know that I've ever met in person alive. Actually, we're not even in person, but I'm looking at you as we zoom.
And we've got the same last name. And what's even more interesting to me is when we first talked after you kind of came across me and whatever you were doing. and reached out. And I want to tell that story too, but I'll just jump ahead and say, what I found so interesting about this connection was in learning about what you're doing now and your...
Your background, your studies, your thesis, all of that. And although, you know, I didn't know of you before we connected, we have got to be related if for no other reason than we have. a lot in common on what's near and dear to us and how we make our living. So anyway, I'll set it up that way and I'm going to turn it back to you. And I think it would just be fun if you could just briefly let everybody know how we first.
encountered our conversation with each other. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree, Joe. I think there's no way that we're not related somewhere. down the line. But yeah, so I just started graduate school at Chatham University's Folk School for Sustainability and Environment. That's just outside of Pittsburgh.
And I was, I believe I was looking for resources on the sheet mulching, which is a technique that I had just learned about where, you know, you put cardboard sheets down to kill your grass and you can build new organic garden beds on top of that. And your name came up immediately. And I just, I had to pause and scratch my head because here was a Joe Lample who was, you know, a PBS specialist star and you had a, you know, thriving gardening podcast.
I just sort of reached out to you out of the blue. I think I found your info at... Yeah. You know, at Joe Gardner. And I reached out to you and you got back to me right away, which is very touching. And we started this very casual correspondence, you know, my entire time that I was in graduate school. And, you know, every few months.
would just send each other an email just giving each other updates about sustainability, gardening world, exciting things that we were learning. And I also became an avid fan of your podcast during that time. So I think that was the general... the general gist. And I think part of that conversation was scratching our heads about whether or not we were actually related. So I think the audience should know that
You spell your last name with an apostrophe between the P and the L, and I do not have an apostrophe in my name. So we talked about that mysterious apostrophe where it came from. If it was added to your name or dropped from my name or, you know, who knows what. Yep. Yep. And just full disclosure, you know, I've got members in my immediate family who don't use the apostrophe. So like daughters and wives.
Not wives. That's not good to say. I'm not sure who in my family doesn't use it, but I know it's not a universal thing within my immediate family. You know, it can be more of a hassle than it's worth because you always have to explain it when you tell people how to spell your name. And then you got to tell the story behind what you think the apostrophe.
was intended to be. It's a nightmare in many cases. But anyway, I digress, but I wanted to throw that in there. But, you know, it was really fascinating to me to not only learn how much we had in common, but then to follow your... course of study and as you continued to progress to the point where you had a thesis that you were defending on the Milwaukee forest. And you taught me something, a term.
that I did not know at the time. And that was about Milwaukee Forest. So I picked your brain and I was fascinated by the concept and you were really filling me in on it because you really were an expert at that point on it. And that's what you're... thesis defense was on as well, which I attended virtually, and it was fascinating as well. And you did a great job. And shame on me for taking so long to come back around.
and have this conversation with you about the Milwaukee forest using your expertise, but maybe just as well, because in the meantime, you've had two years at Phipps Conservatory, a place that's near and dear to my heart. And yet another thing that we have in common and that I...
did a PBS episode there for growing a greener world prior to your arrival, of course, but it's interesting. So I'm going to stop talking here and ask you a question and then let you tee off from there. So Andrew, I am curious though. What led you to this course of study in Milwaukee Forest and anything related to what you're doing now? Was that something that you recognized an interest in yourself growing up or was there a connection to any of this? In prior years?
I'll say full disclosure that I had not heard of the Miyawaki method before I started graduate school. And that was a term that I had learned on my very first day. We were having orientation and one of my co-students, I think we were learning about the... the green living building challenge. And my colleague, Dante leaned over to me and said, this looks like prime real estate for plopping down a Milwaukee forest. And I leaned over to him and I said,
What did you just say? What was that? That was really the start point for what became very quickly a passion and an obsession of mine to learn more about this Miyawaki method of afforestation. But I'll say, you know, rewinding from there... While I didn't know about the idea of necessarily rewilding or creating forests from scratch, I have had a very deep love for nature, for wilderness, for regenerative farming for a number of years.
And that came basically in my mid to late 20s when I started to do different farm stays and work away. opportunities in New Zealand, in Hawaii, in Oregon. And each of those experiences, you just live on the land for a month, two months at a time. I just felt like this was my calling. I needed to figure out a way to make a living doing…
this kind of work. And so that's where the seed was planted, but I didn't know about Milwaukee until 2020. Right. And that's okay. We're always learning about new things and that hasn't been around that long, relatively speaking anyway, but just the fact that. You sensed your calling connected to those activities of the farmstays and nature and all of that. Further reinforces my belief that we have some DNA in there somewhere that is the same.
No question. We'll have to do a 23andMe after this. I know. I've never done that. I'm not sure I want to, but it would be interesting to know. I'm a little scared of it, too. I won't hold you to that. Well, if you do it before I do, let me know if you find the connection. Sounds good. All right, Andrew. Well, why don't we just dive into learning more about what is a Milwaukee forest? How did it come about? Who is Mr. Milwaukee? Obviously, it's named after him.
And I have a few questions I want to ask you as we progress through the conversation, but I'm sure you have a good place to start it. So let's go for it. Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe we can start with the... The man and the legend, Dr. Miyawaki. That sounds good. Take it from there. You know, you talk about celebrities in the botany world, and this man, Dr. Miyawaki, is the exemplary of...
an all-star in this world. Dr. Miyawaki was born in 1928 in a small farming village in Japan. And from the moment he was growing up until he entered graduate school he had a deep fascination with weeds and ecology. And he came of age during the very brutal realities of World War II. So he was seeing devastation all around him. He actually had to travel through Tokyo right after a firebombing there during World War II to take his...
exam for the agricultural school that he ultimately went to. And then in graduate school, he studied at Hiroshima University. And he recalls in a lecture that... he would study with his colleagues underneath a ceiling that was pitch black from the atomic blast. So, you know, these constant daily reminders of humanity's absolute power for destruction. And he was convinced that...
plants that functioning ecological systems were the answer to regenerate, you know, kind of what's been lost. So in, I want to say the 1950s. or 1960s, he started studying weeds ecology with a professor, Dr. Tuckson, in Germany. And he started to get a deep fascination for what's called potential natural vegetation, or PNV for short. And the concept of PNV is...
What would the true vegetation be in an area if you removed all human intervention, all human impaction from that area? What are the true native indigenous plants and trees that would rise up? And it became a fascination for him to identify that potential natural vegetation. And from there, you know, essentially create a bank of appropriate plants that are...
that are culturally appropriate and climate resilient for regeneration. Can I jump in there real quick? Yes, absolutely. If he needed to identify what would have been the natural vegetation of... That area was that area that he was studying for that to come up with those answers. Did the war's influence have an effect on the land and the plants growing there so that perhaps.
there was no way to really tell what would have been natural there because it was just destroyed in the bombings? Yes, actually, that's a great question and segue. So almost... Something like 90% of Japan's landscape had shifted from its potential natural vegetation into ornamentals, things that had been planted, but were not quite right for the ecosystem.
So yeah, Dr. Miyawaki had a dream while he was studying in Germany of what's called a Shinju no Mori forest, which are these protected indigenous... forests behind or surrounding different shrines or temples in Japan. And in this dream, it just became very clear to him that these were old, sacred, protected...
forests that had been in protection for 400, 500 years or more. And that these sacred forests probably held the key to Japan's potential natural vegetation. And so he moved back after this dream. And it was almost like this calling to do this work and to reclaim Japan's vegetation and regenerate it the way that it should be and that it needs to be.
So it was really these Shinju no Mori forests that held the key for him. So that really kind of became his life's work then. What did he go on to do from that? From that dream, he felt like he had his calling. But how did he go about fulfilling those and taking it into real life examples? Yeah. So he spent the next 10 years studying these Shinto shrine forests all over Japan.
using very high level categorizing techniques to classify what the potential natural vegetation would be. And in doing all this work, he started to realize there were there were commonalities between the forest, essentially delineating the the different canopy layers that he found. So you know, he found distinct layers of an overstory or high canopy layer, the understory, the shrub layer, the herb or the moss layer.
And all of these were working in tandem to create this very rich, biologically diverse, you know, thriving forest where, you know, it was sequestering 30 times more carbon than a monostrato. grass lawn, had 20 times more diversity, and was just a really beautiful, thriving ecosystem. And from there, he realized that he might be able to ecologically engineer.
quick growing native forests using these techniques. And he developed what was called the Miyawaki method of afforestation from these studies. So why the need to... want to do this quickly. I think it doesn't take long to realize how long things can take sometimes to grow, but because this was intentional on his part to...
try to come up with a way to make it grow faster. What was the main reason why he felt that was important to be a part of it? I think the reason was if you let a forest, it's basically the natural succession of forests.
from bare ground into a climax native forest, that process alone in nature would take probably 300 to 400 years. And yeah, right. And in Dr. Miyawaki's reasoning- Humanity doesn't have that kind of luxury of time, especially at the rate that we are deforesting, that our urbanization is impacting native lands.
And just, you know, our global sprawl is just happening too quickly. And he felt that we needed to counterbalance that sort of destruction, that impaction with a natural force, you know, that could be equally. implemented in a quick succession. And so with Dr. Miyawaki's method, instead of 300 to 400 years of process, you basically, if you utilize his method to a T, you can have a
fully thriving native forest in two to three years and a self-sufficient, beautiful forest grove in 10 years. So that's just remarkable, right? Yeah. In fact, it sounds too good to be true. I mean, two to three years versus... centuries. That's quite a separation into time. And so, of course, the natural question is,
How does he make that happen? What's he using? Is it the same kind of trees? Is it something that's like a weed tree that obviously is going to grow faster? How does this work to grow so quickly and yet be a true... What would be considered a true forest? And then I have other questions I'm sure I'll ask you based on that, but that's the first one. Yeah. So in a nutshell, as I understand it, and I want to say to you, Joe, that I don't consider myself.
an expert at the Miyawaki method. If anything, I feel that I'm a passionate student and I've researched this method over a number of years. So I hope I have something to share. I'm still learning very much along with everybody else. We all are, Andrew. We all are. So yeah, please proceed. The Miyawaki method, as I understand it and as I've researched, it's a three or four prong process.
The first process is you want to create as close to a forest floor as possible with your planting site. You want to excavate it or if possible or at least decompact it and then add a bunch of like really you know delicious organic materials to that to that planting site. Essentially, the term is biomimicry. You're using nature's processes to create your own forest floor. And you want this really beautiful, soft, pliable medium for the tree roots to just flow through.
So that's step one. You identify your planning site. You dig down to at least a foot deep. You put organic matter such as compost, autumn leaves, straw, mulch, hay. you know, whatever you can find that's organic. And that's step one. Step two is you select as many diverse species as possible from your area's potential natural vegetation. So that's a tough part. You know, you have to do some research beforehand.
There are many resources these days from, you know, state extensions that tell you the native plants and trees of different areas to You know, you can talk to local indigenous folks and ask them what's been growing well in this region for hundreds or thousands of years and get sort of the anecdotal story. You can even look at ancient artwork and see if you can.
identify species that have been growing well before human impact in an area. So those are just some methods. Two questions to follow up on what you've said so far. On step one, When you're adding all that organic material into the soil to create a more favorable growing environment, are you then waiting for a period of time for that to all sort of coalesce or are you just going right into step two after that? You can go right into it.
You can also wait, you can wait a number of weeks. So I, I was a small team and I'm, you know, we can also get into kind of the details of my own Milwaukee forest that I got to install and plant. We should close with that. If that makes sense, that would be good. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, that sounds great. I did mine a little bit slower.
over a number of weeks. So, and that was really the reality was I was a team of one, sometimes two or three or four. I know the feeling, but I was really more curious than anything because if people are interested in learning more, of course, the researchers out there, they can...
read online, but as to the steps to get their head around how long this takes to actually put it into place if they wanted to do it themselves. Okay, so we find our plot, and I guess I should ask another question at this point. How small is too small for this? Or how big is too big? The answer is the cap for how small it is, is recommended with seven trees as the base. So that's a very small plot. I've heard of tiny...
pocket-sized Miyawaki forests that are, you know, three square meters in circumference. It's crazy. So, you know, it can really work with that size and scale. And on the what is too large, I don't think there is. Yeah, right. It's all dependent on... the amount of people that you can get to show up, the tree saplings that you can get supplied, and just your will to create.
you know, a forest that's larger than life. And Andrew, when we're creating this and we're making our plant selections or tree selections or both, because we're trying to mimic a natural forest is what we're trying to do, but a much more intensely planted natural forest. Yes. That's correct. So we have overstory, understory. We have shrub layers. We have ground covers. Are we thinking in holistic terms there to really get all of those?
Elements in place. Yeah. That's exactly right. And so, so that's where the next step of the Milwaukee process comes in. So once you've selected. as many species as possible, you want to try to get equal representation of those different canopy layers that you recommended. And you want to then basically create like a grid or a guild of these different canopy layers.
Let's say you have a row with 16 square meters that are waiting to be planted. Each square meter would then take one high canopy, tree sapling, one mid... one low and potentially some ground cover as well. And then you just want to try to, you don't want to plant these in a straight line. You want to kind of, you know, stagger them around, try not to have any
two species directly next to each other that are of the same variety. And that's really it. So it's very dense planting. It's three saplings or even four saplings per square meter, which kind of boggles the mind. It does mine. It does mine. It did mine as well. And I had many sleepless nights in graduate school thinking like this can't be right. Yeah. You know, this just doesn't make a lot of sense.
But in seeing it in action and reading through Dr. Miyawaki's work, I mean, there are thousands of case studies where it shows that this is very much a successful method. And that's what I wanted to ask you next. Maybe we're only on the step two, but I'm already thinking, well, obviously he was successful at this because if he wasn't, this concept would not persist as it has to this day and continues to grow.
In my horticultural mind, I'm thinking, gosh, that's a crowded environment. That is not how it happens in nature. And, you know, only the strongest survive and the other ones kind of peter out because they're not getting the light they need or whatever. The intensive planting that's taking place here, what was the intention of doing that? Right. So I know this sounds counterintuitive, but Dr. Miyawaki...
he referred to this aspect of the method as following the law of the forest. So in Dr. Miyawaki's field investigations throughout all the natural and old growth forests of Japan, he and his team... they were finding a very consistent pattern between 30 and 50 tiny little tree seedlings that were sprouting up in any given square meter of the forest floor. And so, you know...
The vast majority of these seedlings are not going to grow to maturity, but perhaps one to three will survive and grow to that climax forest. So the Miyawaki method of afforestation calls for basically three seedlings per square meter. And what happens when you plant trees this close together in the network is that the trees have very little room to stretch sideways.
And so it forces a competitive vertical growth towards the, you know, the sweet sunlight. And this is what sparks that 10x growth rate that can be observed through many, many Miyawaki forests across the world. Nice job on helping me get my head around why everything was so close. But interesting that he was making this accessible to the smallest plots of land. And I guess that makes sense in a population concentration.
around Japan, it wasn't uncommon for people to have very, very small plots of land to do any gardening on. Absolutely. Although I should say... Dr. Miyawaki is somewhat unique in his application that he started actually quite large. And so some of the first... Milwaukee forests that he planted were for huge corporations, like Nippon Steel Corporation, like Mitsubishi, Toyota. These companies were hiring him to create these what were called environmental protection forests.
So, you know, all these sites were well known for producing pollution in the atmosphere and, you know, some amount of biological harm and hazard for its surrounding citizens. And so Miyawaki was really obsessed with the idea that you could jumpstart these native forests to grow quickly and to surround these urban blighted areas. for sound protection, for environmental air pollution, for carbon sequestration, all these great biological boons.
And so that's where he was starting at the scale. So he was very, very successful. at engaging you know many levels of multi-stakeholders from the ceos of these corporations to government officials to school children to anything in between and getting thousands of volunteers to show up and planting hundreds of thousands of
native tree saplings. So it's truly remarkable that the scale that he was playing at. And I'm glad you said that the second time. Now you mentioned saplings. I didn't have a chance to ask you the first time you mentioned that, but that has to be one of the keys to the rapid growth. For people that are familiar with saplings, whether they're planting fruit trees or any small tree, a sapling is just kind of a stick with a little bit of root on it.
how quickly a sapling will adapt to its environment if it's planted in the proper place, and then it takes off. And, you know, a lot of times I'm diverging a little bit, but it's directly connected to what we're talking about here. But a lot of times people think they've got to...
go to the nursery and buy the biggest tree they can afford because it's going to give them first instant gratification because of the aesthetics of a larger tree versus a sapling in the backyard. But we know from many, many studies. How quickly a sapling not only catches up to that larger tree because it has to, the larger one has to establish and grow out its root system and get...
acquainted with the soil around it and that environment and ecosystem before it even thinks about putting up new top growth. While the sapling, it hits the ground running pretty much. And so this is why, has to be why. In a matter of a few years, that sapling is up and growing and truly a tree, whereas the other one that we might have considered buying in the backyard could still be sitting there. And the sapling has lapped it a few times.
That's exactly right. Yeah. One of the key aspects of this method is using saplings or bare root trees that are just a year old or so. It is not recommended to use trees that are older than that for the reasons that you recommended. You know, it's just you're going to experience slower growth. The older trees are going to, I think, be really bothered by this.
this uh this density of planting and it'd be interesting to see what happens but i think overall you would not see such successful growth rates um and then i I've heard of certain Miyawaki projects being done by Seed. I'm very interested in that method. I think the same practitioner, Wilson Alvarez, I think he had done a Miyawaki from Seed where he...
very, very densely scattered native seeds instead of saplings, like maybe 10 times the density that we were talking about for saplings. I need to check on... the validity of that method though. But if you're talking about cost savings, this is where it can get a little expensive depending on how you're sourcing these saplings. If you have access to a nursery and you're...
collecting native seeds and acorns and whatnot from your surrounding, you know, protected forests and growing them yourselves, that's probably a cost-effective method. That's how Miyawaki did it. Okay, we're going to take a quick break for this message from our brand partner, Proven Winner's Color Choice. But don't go anywhere because the interesting conversation continues with Andrew Lample. We'll be right back after the break. You know, whenever you're in your local garden center...
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intervening at all. I understand from the research you want to have your hands on this project for a couple years to ensure that establishment takes place and everything's up and growing. But after that, I think you back off. But I just wanted to clarify that the intent of the Milwaukee forest concept is these trees are left to their own devices to duke it out. And when you have two...
Overstory trees growing in close proximity to each other. One's probably going to outcompete the other one or, I mean, otherwise it would be really crowded. I'm just trying. I haven't been up close into a mute. I've seen pictures from afar, but I'd love to know what it's really like to be in the midst of one to compare. Yeah. No, and that's a really good point. And I think...
Yes, there is an element of, I mean, you're planting and designing what is to be a dense forest, right? So what's going to come up is absolutely like dense thicket of trees. That sort of thins out over time. I think one of the Milwaukee papers looked at the survival rate over years of planting. So in the very first year or two, you do have almost like a 90%.
success rate of survival, you know, they all sort of shoot up. But after that, you know, probably in the, after five years or so, I bet, and Milwaukee's research shows that. you would probably find closer to a 60, 65% survival rate at that time, where kind of the survival of the fittest, the taller trees are establishing themselves, the mid canopy and the shrubs, they're all finding their place. You know, I know certain...
foresters are not going to be comfortable with that kind of success rate. And I've heard some pushback saying that's too much of a loss to deal with, but it really depends on your... on your goal and timeline that you're working on. I understand why he came up with this concept to try to rapidly replace a lot of what was lost, but...
The density that he's planting at still has me a little bit perplexed. I know it works because we've had time to test that out. I guess my question is, why do it so densely versus... more of a natural effect if we're trying to create you know a dense canopy forest well in nature they're not that dense but why not just plant a fifth of the saplings so that they all have
room to survive and succeed and no doubt wouldn't they grow just as fast and ultimately wouldn't that be better i'm just brainstorming here because i've my all these questions are circling around in my head i have the same question yeah and you know i i don't know Well, I'll say, you know, I tried to follow the method to a T and to see if that method worked. And I have to say, you know, my personal Miyawaki forest is three going on four years old.
And it absolutely works. You know, it really is remarkable to think about the twigs that I was planting in the ground a few years ago and to walk into this forest thicket now. I think your questions are very valid and I think worth further research. You know, I think there's probably, depending on the environment that you're planting, you know, if you're, let's say you're planting in...
like a water-starved area like India, Afghanistan, something where the survival rate is not looking good. I think probably that density of planting, it works in your favor because... truly the survival of the fittest will take over. And through it all, you'll have some loss, but you will have a successful forest that comes to fruition. I planted in rural Pennsylvania in pretty rich soil that's already there. Did I need to plant as densely? Probably not.
But I do think the denser you plant and the closer you follow that method with the organic soil amendments and the mulching afterwards to suppress weeds and to... and to enhance water retention, I do think you would see a direct correlation with the growth rate. You know, it's worth pouring into this research to figure out the why of that. And I'm sorry I don't have a, you know, a more eloquent answer. That's okay.
More research to be had. Yeah. And didn't send you these questions in advance. I never do. But a lot of these are coming to me as we're talking. And so that's why I went ahead and asked them. But we know the ecological, the biological, and the environmental reasons.
We've addressed that a good bit initially in this conversation as to why the density makes sense. You know, we're really trying to sequester as much carbon as possible. We're trying to create the most biodiverse habitat and maybe the smallest footprint as possible. and get rapid growth, hence the saplings and so forth. And then his first Milwaukee Forest was one of these large car companies or factories. Is that...
Yeah, the very first one I believe was for Nippon Steel Corporation, which is a Japanese utility company that makes steel.
And they commissioned Miyawaki. I think they were concerned with the pollution levels that they were emitting into the atmosphere. They'd found out about Miyawaki's work and they started talking and Dr. Miyawaki said, I will absolutely do this for you, but you have to give me a promise that if there's ever a day where these trees are no longer functioning and that through your own...
damaging environmental processes have failed the trees, you need to shut your factory off and stop the blast furnace. And they didn't quite agree to that. They will do everything they can to protect those trees. You know, that was 40 or 50 years ago, and that forest is thriving in Japan today. Really? Yeah. Are they forests that can be visited and walked through? Are they not so dense that you could not?
hike through it on a trail and things like that. Yeah, you can visit them and hike through the trail, depending. I'm sure there are certain ones that are on private property. Oh, yeah. There are certain ones that are in. urban epicenters like Tokyo and around different college campuses and universities. And to my understanding, yes, you can hike through these. There will be natural gaps and pathways that open up.
over time oh yes but great question because that was something that was keeping me up at night when i was designing my own miyawaki forest it's like how is anybody gonna get in here to to do some work yeah oh that was that was your question from earlier yes yeah Going back a little bit there, for the first two years, you do need to maintain these forests a bit. Really just like looking at weed pressures and weeding occasionally if, you know, thistles or pokeberry or things that...
are going to be vigorous growers are going to start to outcompete. Yeah. Right. And when you're, when you're waking up the seed bed initially, you know, there's a lot of those dormant seeds that were just laying weight to an opportunity and you've created it when you went to. improve the soil and then plant the saplings and so forth. So they're having a party, but you need to go take them out. Yeah, you got to end that party. Party's over, boys. Yeah, party's over. Time to go back to the woods.
But yeah, so that's one aspect of maintaining that constant weeding and making sure nothing's getting out of hand in the first two years. And then watering, depending on your climate and the state of your trees. I didn't have to do too much water in Pennsylvania. We had a fair amount of rainfall. But those are two aspects that you do need to think about for the first two years. And then afterwards, if you've done it right, it should be completely self-sufficient moving forward.
Now, my questions might sound as though I'm skeptical and... questioning a lot of this, but I'm just asking out of curiosity, because I really love the idea of accessibility to people being able to plant pocket forest in what would not... typically be perceived as a place that you could do that so i'm all for that you know i'm a tree hugger extraordinaire so any opportunity to plant trees but i have to ask you also i think about you know when you think about all the fires and the
out west and the density of the forest, and that creates its own fuel sometimes because of the, you know, the dead wood that's laying at the base of other things. How does, is that a... I guess my question is, is that a thing with the Milwaukee forest? Because I would think if we're planting that densely and not everything's going to survive, because I think we've established that already, then that...
wood is going to die back and it's going to lay there until it rots. But in the meantime, it sounds like it's some amazing fuel if some wildfire came through. Do you have any insight on that? Yeah, I had the same question and I actually have a... a portion of my thesis dedicated to just thoughts on that because I'd never came across any sort of research that talks about Miyawaki in the same breath as fire management. And for the reasons that you just articulated, yeah, I think...
Maybe this method would not be appropriate in places like Arizona, Colorado, California, drier regions. But again, I just think there's more research to be had on that specific topic. Sure. So what about this? Where is the trend these days? Where do we see Milwaukee Forest being planted and reasons for such? What's the trend now? Where's it going?
Is it maintaining strength, picking up pace? Is it leveling out? Give us some of that. Yeah, I feel like it's slowly but surely picking up some speed and some interest in the United States specifically. I think there are... thousands of of miyawaki forests that exist globally but i think very few that exists in the united states for whatever reason and so some of the higher level projects that i've heard of of the past couple years
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, they planted what's believed to be the first Milwaukee forest. That's, I think, five years old at this point and it's doing very, very well. First where? In the U.S.? First in the U.S. Okay. And then they've just recently planted another Milwaukee forest in Roosevelt Island in New York City. Another one, I think in Somerville, Boston. I wanted to give a shout out to Mount Cuba Center in Delaware.
They're doing actually some Miyawaki research right now. They actually have a reforestation plot with six different guilds ranging from... you know sort of like standard plantation method planting all the way to what you had described a few minutes earlier where it's like an adapted miyawaki method where it's just
slightly less density, still native plants, seeing how that grows with a full-on Miyawaki method. And they're just doing side-by-side comparisons. And do they have an end date for coming up with summary information? They're probably, they want to have something, I think that study is maybe three or four years in the making. So they want to do a five-year study and a 10-year study. So that would be really exciting to pay attention to.
Shout out indeed to Mount Cuba Center. I'm a big fan. I've been there several times. We filmed an episode there for Growing a Greener World. I'm a big fan of their research and they do an impeccable job over typically a three to four year period of time, even on their... Native plants and shrubs, you know, it's amazing what they do. I'm excited to hear that because they're really good at their research. Not that others aren't, but it's a big part of what they do.
Yes, absolutely. And then, you know, we have another museum partner in the United Kingdom, the Horniman Museum. They actually planted a Miyawaki forest back in 2020, as Miyawaki intended, an environmental protection forest. They butt up right against the highway and they have some animals on their property and they just wanted to create a better habitat.
So they created this beautiful, thin stretch of Milwaukee forest, and it's also doing very, very well. And that's a scattered handful. I think there are plenty of projects that are going on worldwide and in the United States. But there's still... a lot of skepticism out there. There's a lot of questions. Actually, I gave a presentation on the Miyawaki Method to what's called the Beyond Trees Network last year. And that's a department that's run out of the
the U.S. Forestry Service, but it's for their international programs. So they're looking at different afforestation, reforestation techniques for the global south and really, you know, getting people passionate about tree planting in kind of like densely urbanized areas. So I gave a presentation on that along with a practitioner in Japan and two practitioners in India and another practitioner in Mexico. It was a really cool two-hour webinar. But I have to say...
For as much delight and interest that I received, I received an equal amount of pretty vehement pushback from arborists that have been in this world for 10, 20, 30 years. I understand the skepticism. I get it where it's coming from. And it's hard to... To articulate why this will work when somebody has such a strong background for, you know, a standard traditional way of, of planting. So, you know, that, that exists, that's, that pushback is real. And I think that's probably what's.
what's halting the method from fully, fully taking off. And, you know, that's what's driving a lot of my questions because I have the traditional horticulture background and I'm a big believer in providing light and air circulation between whatever you plant. And so... That's where my head is at and why I'm so interested in this concept, because if it works and time is a great validator of whether something works or not.
You know, with all the success that Milwaukee has had with these large and smaller plantings, there's something to the method. But I also understand the pushback because we know what we know and people are resistant to change. Or accept a new idea when they've just been doing it the same way for years and years. And when they've been taught, best practices is the way they've been doing it for all that time. But that's not to say they're mutually exclusive.
And that this can work too. Hence the questions that I had and the interest I had in your response. Absolutely. And maybe, you know, maybe my... my entry point into this world. I don't come from that classical background. And so maybe I entered it with a very open mind and I was just willing to accept it.
For the skeptics out there, there are so many case studies that exist. It's well documented on YouTube. Dr. Miyawaki himself was responsible for planting over 1,700 of these Miyawaki forests and something over 40 million trees. He was responsible for putting into the ground through his coordination, through his teams. That's pretty remarkable. And I think I'm thinking about climate change and just the need to...
for humanity to really act quickly in this next 10-year window of what we can do. And that's why the method really speaks to me on a personal level because this is a way to kind of jumpstart nature's processes and get you know, a fully functioning forest brought into fruition that can sequester carbon in as little as two, three years. And I think we just need that kind of action right now. 1,000% agree.
With urban sprawl and the loss of wildlife corridors and all the reasons we need to be actively planting keystone species, there's no shortage of arguments as to why... This sounds like a good idea. And the rate at which they grow and the little time that we have to make progress and cut into the damage that's been caused because we're about to get to an irreversible point.
And anything we can do to cut into that and maybe drag out the timeline a little bit, that would be fine with me. So, yes, that's very interesting. Are you finding one way or the other? Whether governments or urban planners are embracing this method widely enough to get traction or are they pushing back on it too? Yeah, I think it depends on...
probably your location and your municipality. So it seems like, you know, in Boston that one of their mayor is very forward thinking and very into sustainability and green initiatives. they're getting the green light for a lot of these Milwaukee projects. In Pittsburgh, it's been a little bit slower going. I know, you know, I can speak for Phipps Conservatory, where I work. Our director, Richard Piacentini, is very interested in getting involved in this method I presented.
something similar to my thesis presentation for him. And he, you know, he perked up immediately and we're looking for community partners right now that might want to take this journey with us. Not necessarily around the Phipps campus, but in different potentially underserved neighborhoods, neighborhoods that don't have a lot of tree cover or a lot of industrial blight that could use, you know, a quick growing forest to.
cover some of that and revegetate in a native way. And so that's, you know, we're, we're thinking about that right now. So I would say there's interest, but there's still the momentum hasn't started yet. Yeah. Okay. Well, Wrapping up here with just maybe two last questions, what would you say is the biggest misconception about Milwaukee Forest that you'd like to clear up? And it seems to me, based on what we just talked about, it's getting...
people to understand that it doesn't have to just be one way because both ways work and getting them to understand. So I shouldn't have filled in the blank there to my own question when I was asking it of you, but. What would you say? What in your mind is the biggest misconception of the Milwaukee Forest? Yeah, I think you stated it, but the main misconception is that...
the sheer density of planting just couldn't possibly work. And I think while it does boggle the mind a bit and it does, it seems to counteract everything that we know about tree planting and natural processes.
The method really does work. And you can just go out and do your own research and find these case studies that exist or plant your own, right? Because you can plant such a small... guild that's that's three meters squared or larger you can very easily do it on your own time and and you know in your own volition and i love that thought because who wouldn't want to
Have the opportunity on a little piece of land that they steward to have a forest within just a few short years compared to planting those trees thinking that you're doing it for the benefit of... who comes after you because you'll never live to see it. You know, that's what we've always heard. Exactly. But this would be very cool. So in closing though, we started with your mention of your own Milwaukee forest project.
And so I'd like to learn, hear a little bit more about that and maybe the most surprising thing that you've learned from this project, the biggest aha for you. Yeah, absolutely. So let's see, back in 2021. I was in graduate school getting my master's in sustainability. And, you know, I have become deeply obsessed with the Miyawaki method at this point. And I was just sort of nagging my professor, who is Dr. Chris Murakami.
He ran the agroecological demonstration garden on campus. And there was a plot that was totally bare. It was already fenced in from deer, but just there were no crops growing on it. That was just sort of fallow land. And I begged him, I was like, please, Dr. Murakami, can I use this agroecological demonstration wing to plant a Milwaukee forest for my thesis? And surprisingly, he said, yeah, if you can...
find the materials, find the budget, you know, get your partnerships in order. Let's do it. Awesome. And so that was amazing. So the space itself is not large. It's about a little It's just a little over 2,000 square feet or the size of a tennis court, if that helps you conceptualize. Yeah. That's a good comparison. And so I was able to partner with...
an amazing initiative called Keystone 10 million tree partnership, which is funded by the Chesapeake Bay foundation. They made my life very easy in a way because they were offering, they're doing a tree planting campaign, trying to get 10 million native trees planted in Pennsylvania by 2030. Really ambitious. And yeah, through that program, you know, I hooked up with them and
Every spring and every fall, they make available basically a bank of bare roots that are all native to Pennsylvania, all different varieties. So they came out with maybe 50, 55 different... varieties that I could choose from. And from that, I whittled down my list into how I described it before selecting the high canopy, the mid canopy, the low canopy, and the shrub layers. I ended up picking 16 species from that list.
And then I ordered about 750 bare root trees in total. So, you know, pretty dense planting. That's about in square meters. 200 square meters or so. And so those arrived at my campus. That was all free of charge, which is wonderful. That's just through the Keystone 10 million tree partnership. Did they all arrive at once?
No, they did not. That's a great question. No, they arrived in shipments of three. And that was an issue because I kind of expected all of them to arrive at once so I could do my planting all kind of... in one go. But because they were staggered, I had to reconceptualize my planting a little bit and leave spaces for certain species. It was no problem though. And then... We did a process where over a few weeks, we had solarized that field with a tarp, killed the grass over the winter.
Come early spring, we remove the tarp. My professor and I used a BCS walk-behind tractor, if you're familiar with that. It's my first time using a machine like that, but it had an excavator in the back that would...
excavate down to a depth of a foot or so, and then shoot that soil over to a ridge. So we would open up these what we were calling furrows. And then We used all kinds of organic matter that we could find on the farm, including these heaps of goat manure, fallen autumn leaves, and then we ordered two shipments or 16 yards of compost to be delivered on campus.
And so all of that went into these furrows, rich amendments, put all that into the ground. And then you had this beautiful, soft, pliable material to plant in. And then when the trees came... We planted over the course of two weeks. Sometimes it was really just me alone in the field with my thoughts and my feelings. And sometimes it was- And a good podcast on your earbuds.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I'm sure I bet I did listen to a Joe Lampy podcast during that time. That's what I do when I'm out alone gardening. I've got a good podcast, garden podcast in my ears. But yeah, sometimes it was me. Sometimes I had a small team of three or four people, including my brothers or some of my coworkers, my colleagues from school. And we just sort of methodically went.
you know, down the list. I can share my schematic with you for the website afterwards. That would be great. Yeah, we had a really detailed planting schematic. We went from the top row A, just filled everything in. We planted totally by hand. um let's see some of the species that we use were American beech, hazelnut, hickory, black locust, eastern redbud, tulip poplar. pussy willow, spice bush, sweet gum, witch hazel. Yeah, really, really nice species. Yeah.
And then we put everything in and then we give a deep mulch with some organic rye that was growing in a nearby crop block that I just mowed down and put over and then some straw on top of that. And then we had a sprinkler that was in the center. It would just, you know, we turn it on on particularly dry days, did a couple episodes of weeding, but really like two or three sessions, really nothing crazy. Right. And then I also want to say that I...
I developed or designed walking pathways into the forest, which I think is pretty key if you want ease of access and maintenance. I don't think every designer does that, but I would recommend it because it made life much, much easier.
Well, and you can combine a little forest bathing in there too, when you got a way to get into it and take advantage of that too. So there's a human aspect of it as well as the, all the environmental. Yes. That's really interesting that you brought forest bathing. So, you know. We planted all bare root trees. There was maybe a leaf or two that had sprung out from these bare roots, but really it was just twigs. No more than 10 inches, 12 inches.
That was in early May, so I kind of let it alone. My professor did a bit of the weeding and the watering. I came back at the end of the summer, beginning of the fall, and those trees had shot up, my goodness. I had left it in a brown patch of exposed soil with some mulch on top of it. And it was like a young forest that I'd returned to. Some of the trees were already as tall as me. Oh my gosh. I'm not a tall person, but I'm over five feet. Yeah.
And so that was remarkable to see. And then I recently I've been back. The most recent time I've been back was earlier this fall. So three years into the into the making. And the trees are now, you know, 15, 20 feet tall. And it is a fully fledged forest. And so two of my walking paths have since closed over, but one still... has maintained itself. And you could walk right into the center of the forest and you could just plop down. And it is so remarkable. It's almost like a...
I don't want to say cognitive dissonance because that sounds like a negative effect. I mean, it's just magical. Like to feel myself, you know, two years prior planting these leafless twigs. And to be surrounded by beautiful, tall, towering trees and this, you know, this essence of forest. I just felt very proud and very moved, you know, that I had...
created something like this and, and that the method really did work. It was just heartening to see. That is so cool. Please tell me you took pictures. I did. Okay. I will share plenty of pictures with you after this episode. Yes. I would love to walk you through the forest sometime if you're ever in Pittsburgh, Joe. Well, Andrew, we're destined for an in-person meeting. So that's not a matter of if, but when and when. Yes. When happens.
I'm going to get you to take me over there. I'd love to see it. That would be wonderful. Thank you so much for this. It's been a real pleasure, a long time coming, but I'm glad we did it. And keep up the good work and let's keep in touch. And I look forward to meeting you.
Thank you so much, Joey. Really, really a pleasure and an honor to be on your show. And I have to say, I had a dream that this was going to happen, a podcast between Lample and Lample. Yeah, awesome. Very happy that it manifested. Me too, Andrew Lample. It's a pleasure. Until later. Take care. You too. Well, the Milwaukee Force concept was totally new to me when I first heard about it through Andrew over a year ago. But since then...
I hear about it quite a bit, and I hope that this is something that continues to gain traction now more than ever with so much habitat loss. You can go back and re-listen to this podcast again and check out the unique show notes. that were created from this conversation, as well as pictures that Andrew has provided, including the one of his Milwaukee Forest Project and other examples that you will really enjoy seeing, I'm sure, along with relevant links to more information.
You can find all of that on our website at joegardner.com. Look for the podcast tab, and this is episode number 410. During the week, you can find me on Instagram and YouTube. My handle on Instagram is at Joe Gardner and the YouTube channel is Joe Gardner TV. And while you're on YouTube, check out my other channel there.
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