We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden. Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water. We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making.
Common Name Mountain avens
Habit mat forming
Native to Scandinavia Dryas octopetala (mountain avens, white dryas, and white dryad) is an Arctic–alpine flowering plant in the family Rosaceae. It is a small prostrate evergreen subshrub forming large colonies. The specific epithet octopetala derives from the Greek octo (eight) and petalon (petal), referring to the eight petals of the flower, an unusual number in the Rosaceae, where five is the normal number.
The entire plant, harvested just before or at flowering time is astringent and digestive. An infusion is used as a stomach tonic, and also as a gargle for treating gingivitis and other disorders of the mouth and throat. The plant makes a good ground cover for spring bulbs, though it is not strongly weed suppressive. It is a Nitrogen fixer. Slow-growing at first, it then forms a dense mat. Plants should be spaced about 30cm apart each way and they form a carpet, the branches rooting at intervals along the stems.
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