CE Webinar: Establishing Mini Forests in Degraded Urban Soils

Landscape architects, planners, and urban forestry professionals are increasingly seeking creative solutions to expand tree canopy cover in dense urban areas, where canopy targets are ambitious and suitable planting space is often limited. The Miniforest, or “Miyawaki,” forest planting method offers an alternative to planting trees as individual specimens by establishing dense, diverse clusters of trees and shrubs. This approach is intended to accelerate canopy development, with evidence suggesting that trees planted using this method may achieve faster growth than those in conventional single-tree plantings. However, successful Miniforest establishment can be challenging.

In this webinar, Rhoda deJonge, Director at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, will examine key barriers, including the high cost of soil remediation, the need to budget for dense plantings despite potential tree mortality, constraints in site selection, and the limited research comparing the benefits of mini forests with those of conventional plantings. We also discuss practical strategies for addressing these challenges.