A lush container garden featuring white IBC tanks, stacked and horizontal, filled with ferns, grasses, and small birch trees on gravel, against a blue wall.
Container Garden

The IBC Pocket Forest

Designed by Sara Edwards
Photo: Royal Horticultural Society
About this garden

The story

Designing small spaces does not mean you have to use small containers or plants… instead think big! Inspired by the balconies of Milan’s Bosco Verticale and tiny urban forests utilising the Miyawaki method of creating diverse multi-layered forest, this garden is an urban pocket forest and haven for wildlife built by repurposing Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBC) into a sanctuary to sit and be immersed in nature. Trees are the stars of this garden. Rowan, hawthorn, silver birch and hazel are beloved by wildlife. The customised IBC containers are planted in a multilayered scheme with trees, mid-storey shrubs and underplanting. IBCs are inexpensive to purchase when at the end of their leasing lifecycle and, like pallets and shipping containers, are readily available, modular and easily customisable.
The people behind it

Designer

Photography

Gallery

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Organisations

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