posted 9 years ago
As with all such things, it's complicated.
There are a lot of things to bear in mind, but they all come down to a question of succession. As you seem to have realised, a guild is not something that exists in climax isolation (a common mistake that you seem to have spotted!).
If your shrub and groundcover layer needs shade, especially if you are in a hot climate, you may have to wait to plant those layers when the canopy has matured. The time that will take depends on your rootstocks. If it doesn't (it's shade tolerant, not shade-requiring), you can get on with it. You can plant shorter-lived perennials that will die back as the canopy closes (several books have charts giving useful lifespans of woody perennials), or short-lived, even annual, climbers such as beans that will provide shade to your shade-loving plants during the growing season. Woody nitrogen fixers such as Eleagnus species should be planted now.
In the interim it's definitely worth planting interim intercrops, perhaps nitrogen fixers, as S Bengi suggests. Mushrooms can also be grown in woody mulch, provided it's no more than a couple of months old.