Roots Support it All

You can only see a small part of your garden! Roots under the soil feed plants, hold them in place and feed the soil.

Think about a plant’s roots when combining it with other plants in the garden.

Healthy gardens need a mixture of long deep (‘tap’) roots to bring up minerals, and shallow roots to hold soil together.

Start building your garden by planting perennials (plants that live longer than one year) and herbs, which are useful plants that have tough healthy roots.


Soil needs to be filled with roots at varying depths that stabilise it and bring minerals to the surface where they can be accessed by shallow rooted plants. Perennials and herbs can provide a quick, hardy way to colonise the soil and rebuild its health while providing easily accessible food and medicine.

Roots hold plants up!

They hold the soil together, they can break up rocks and clay.

They make paths through the soil that allow air and water and food to travel.

Really all roots are a good thing.

Even roots are their own little ecosystem, almost a little city with fungus and bacteria carrying fuel and food around the soil and plants.

Plants even communicate with their roots, sending chemical messages to each other about food and threats.