Micro-forest Bento Box: Native Edibles in a Tiny Garden

When you love plants but don’t have a backyard, container gardening is your next best bet. Usually when we talk about container gardening and balcony gardens, we picture spaces loaded with pots of all shapes and sizes, each containing just one or two species, creating an impressive collection of greenery.

This time, we’re thinking along the lines of “botanical bento”, a delightful emerging trend of thoughtful gardening in small spaces. The botanical bento approach applies to tiny backyards as well as fruit bowls, and everything in between. Size doesn’t matter – it’s what you do with the space.

“Bento” is a state of mind

Stemming from the concept of bento boxes (Japanese lunch boxes containing a balanced, single-serve meal) a micro-forest bento box borrows the approach of thoughtful curation and purposeful activity.

Your tiny bento garden serves as a slice of nature you can spend time with when you can’t get away. It’s your desktop reminder of life beyond work and busyness, reaffirming your connection to the natural world. Ideally, you’d eliminate unwanted stressors in your life and spend more time outdoors – but for many people, this just can’t happen as easily as they’d hope.

Combining the art of bonsai, terrariums, fairy gardens, and the Miyawaki method, a micro-forest bento is a harmonious pocket of peace, crafted according to the four layers of a micro-forest.

Setting up your bento garden

The most important thing to remember about container gardening is that your plants will be entirely dependent on you for survival. Even if you live in a pleasant climate with the exact amount of sunshine and rainfall for the species you choose, the container environment still won’t sufficiently mimic natural growing conditions for the plant to thrive. However, with the right setup, you can still give your potted micro-forest a roaring start.

Your container

The ideal size of the container will depend on what you want your micro-forest bento to achieve. If you hope to plant several species of native bushfoods for eating, you’d do well with a “larger small pot” at least 30cm in diameter and 50cm deep to give your plants room to grow. Large planter boxes work well, as do half-barrel style pots as long as there’s an outlet for water to drain away. The wider the pot, the more plants you’ll be able to fit.

You can go smaller for a desktop bento garden, like an open terrarium or fairy garden, but know that you won’t be growing plants to full size. Tiny garden boxes like these are more for decoration, comfort, and small-scale nature play.

Potting mix

For most plants (not just native Australian edibles), we always recommend an Australian Premium Standard potting mix. It comes pre-packaged with the ideal proportions of nutrients for growing plants in containers.

A high-quality potting mix won’t need extra additives, not even fertiliser, as its special formulation should already contain a slow-release fertiliser suitable for your plants. For succulent-only bento gardens, opt for a special succulent potting mix to ensure adequate drainage – terrariums without drainage holes will need a layer of potting charcoal at the bottom to keep the soil “sweet”.

Your garden theme

Equally important is a theme that unites all the elements of your tiny garden. This gives you a central concept to work with, informing your choice of plants and decorative elements. You don’t have to pick a strong theme, but it helps to have an idea of what you want from a harmonious bento space.

Tips for a diverse micro-forest bento box

The secret to a Micro food-forest is diversity, combining a range of plants across the four forest layers:

• Forest floor – the sheltered lowest spaces where organic matter decomposes and nutrients accumulate to feed your plants
• Herb layer – groundcovers that act as a “living mulch”, protecting both the forest floor and the living organisms that give it life
• Shrub layer – in a full-sized forest, this layer shelters creatures higher up the food chain
• Tree layer – also known as the canopy, this layer helps maintain the micro-climate in your small ecosystem

Working to a smaller size, there’s only so much you can do in a single plant pot, so it pays to plan ahead.

Skip the root veggies

First and foremost, we don’t recommend choosing bushfoods for their edible roots (such as Bloodroot, Atherton Ginger, Chocolate Lily and Murnong Yam Daisy), since digging them up to harvest will disturb your other plants. Advanced gardeners using a very wide pot or a long planter box might get away with designating different “crop zones”, but for desktop gardeners, we suggest sticking with above-ground edibles like herbs and groundcovers.

Limit your potted micro-forest to one small tree

Although many bushfood trees are capable of growing very tall, some can also thrive as “large bonsai” specimens. You can also choose from leafy bushfood species commonly grown as shrubs, pruning them into tree-like shapes so they serve as a canopy.

Again, bento gardens designed for desks are restricted by size – here, it makes more sense to plant a shrub and train it using traditional bonsai techniques to make it resemble a tree. Alternatively, you might forego woody shrubs and tree species altogether, opting instead of herbs, groundcovers and succulents at varying size and density.

Choose plants with compatible needs

Generally, we suggest combining species that prefer similar growing conditions (such as succulents), as this will make it easier to cater for all the plants in your micro-forest. As well as this, you might also consider plants that work in tandem with other plants — for example, planting the hemi-parasitic Sandalwood Nut (Santalum spicatum) alongside the nitrogen-fixing Raspberry Jam Wattle (Acacia acuminata).

Use your herb layer as “living mulch”

Choose dense, leafy groundcovers for your herb layer to act as a “living mulch”, keeping moisture in the soil and providing shelter for the bugs that eat detritus and help a forest floor to thrive. Adding plants like Bush Basil (Plectranthus graveolens), Native Wintercress (Barbarea australis), Warrigal (Tetragonia tetragonioides) and Sea Parsley (Apium prostratum var. prostratum) means you can harvest and eat on a regular basis – a very rewarding motivator for the home gardener.

Pro tip: Grow these bushfood herbs to full size elsewhere in your home. You can save the seeds for growing microgreens in your bento box garden.

Nourish your forest floor

It’s hard to recreate forest floor conditions in an urban container garden, but you can give yours a decent headstart without the extra expense. Next time you cook with mushrooms, save the raw, unwashed stems and a couple of heads. Finely chop or blend them, then dig them into the top three inches of your potting mix before your plants go in. As the mushrooms decompose, they’ll boost the soil’s microbial activity — and thus your micro-forest ecosystem.

Caring for your container micro-forest

Any container-grown garden will need a helping hand every now and then, if only to keep your plants at a manageable size. Here’s what you need to know for the first few years of your potted micro-forest.

Pruning and harvesting

Pruning and harvesting helps to keep your potted micro-forest a manageable size and shape while encouraging bushy new growth. Leafy plants in your herb layer can be harvested through regular pruning throughout the growing season. Woody plants in your tree and shrub layer should be pruned shortly after their fruiting season (which varies between species) or at least a month before the plant goes into dormancy.

Fertilise wisely

With a high-quality potting mix, you shouldn’t need to fertilise your plants for many months after planting. In fact, we would caution against fertilising too soon to avoid a build-up of nutrients your plants aren’t yet ready to use. (Though if you have a compost bin, bokashi bin or worm farm, feel free to water your potted micro-forest with diluted compost tea at any time.) After about six months, apply a small amount of slow release fertiliser. Resist the temptation to over-fertilise, even though there are many plants in your pot.