>> All gorgeous. I hope you enjoyed visiting them as much as I enjoyed your posts. <<

Very much so.

>> Charleston are a very fortunate community.<<

So it is.

>> We have similar public projects around here under different name (e.g. community orchard rather than food forest).<<

They can be slightly different things. A food forest is densely layered, and this one really is. A community orchard can be just fruit trees, which is also nice.

>> I like all your posts but the Charleston Food Forest appeals to me most as a garden. <<

At home, I call my style laissez-faire permaculture. It's not even as organized as the food forest, but I have taken things from there to grow at home -- harvesting seeds in fall, and digging up things in the paths that would just get trampled.

>> You'd hate my side path though, because to keep the concrete paving slabs cooler I planted the cracks with Creeping Thyme (the natural variety) to grow across as cover so I now have a carpet of bees for several weeks each summer. :-)

As long as there's another route it's fine. I have mother-of-thyme. The food forest used to have creeping thyme all over but they pulled out a lot of it from the paths and under the sign.