Seasonal stacking of plants through the year.

I`ve noticed that my erythronium have died back naturally through the summer leaving a bare patch. They are in deep shade, but surely there is an opportunity to have another growing plant to follow, if not here, in a more sunny patch.



What good successional plantings have people managed to create in their Forest gardens? What planting combinations would you like to try, or have tried that didn`t work out?

I've also been wondering this myself. After some of my plants naturally fall back, I would like to keep that area productive. Is there a concern of stripping nutrients if you plant too many in succession without giving the soil rest?

In an established Forest Garden where the soil is undisturbed, the fungal networks in the soil are known to transport nutrients over quite a long distance. That's not to say that feeding your plants is not a good idea too, but diversity in planting, and the fact that you would rarely harvest the whole of a perennial plant mean the soil is less depleted than in a 'conventional' annual garden.  I think a mulch once a year with autumn leaves, seaweed, or comfrey would normally be plenty of additional nutrients.

Nancy, I wasn't specifically looking for an answer to your question, but I've been researching forest tree guilds and found a PDF at the Midwest Permaculture website. One of the guilds it lists is service tree. And in that guild, trout lily was mentioned. So, I'm assuming any of these would be good options for you.

Here is their service tree guild list:

Service tree

Semi-dwarf fruit trees: apple, pear, apricot, peach, plum

Hazelnut

Currents or gooseberries

Runner beans

Ground nut (Apios Americana)

Comfrey

Horseradish

Lemon balm

Trout lilies

White clover

Dill

Caraway

Parsley

Fennel

Garlic

Chives

Leeks

Ramps

Here is the link to where you can download the PDF - https://midwestpermaculture.com/2013/04/plant-guilds/

When I read your question, I immediately thought of walking onions and with garlic, chives and leeks on Leigh's list, clearly they'd have a chance. I like to put some in a bunch of different places as they'll produce at different times through the year. Normally, I go out foraging and take one stalk from each plant in an area, so I wouldn't think that stripping nutrients would be a problem so long as fall leaves are allowed to stay on the ground.

That said, I'm adding some bits of comfrey under more and more of my trees. It requires more water than I'd like, but it's easy to chop and drop it to mulch and feed the soil.

Thank Leigh for that list. I`ll have to study it and work out what might work for me. One of the problems with the Dogs tooth violet is that it is the bulbs that are edible, so it needs a bit of digging in autumn, so a root crop that comes into leaf later might be good, to be dug at the same time, I wonder about Myrris odorata (sweet cicely)? That is supposed to have pleasant roots.
I`m just thinking about digging my clump up of Erythronium now for the first time - that picture was taken a few years ago and  I may spread most of them out a bit they are so pretty. I also think the area is too shady at the moment. I guess the sycamore are my successional plants. I have to compromise between wind shelter (which I still desperately need) and shade.

This is a good example of why guilds aren't a very helpful tool for planning. Plants associate much more freely than the very restrictive guild lists tend to suggest, and the combinations that work best depend on soil, water, temperature etc rather than being the same in all areas and gardens. Also, what is needed here is a plant for a very specific niche - summer growth in significant shade - and the guild list doesn't tell you anything about this. I grow white wild strawberries around my erythroniums as they are slow to start but ate capable of producing a usable yield in the shade under my Japanese plum after the erythroniums have died down.

With sweet cicely, I find that the young shoots (produced almost all year round in shade here) are a better crop than the roots, but then they come into growth too early to complement erythronium. Treating them like an annual and seeding anew every year could well work, as they are capable of growing in shade through the summer, but you would need to be sure you got them all out! Digging erythroniums needn't be very disruptive if you do it soon after the leaves die down (the dead leaves are still visible for a while), or in spring when the first new leaves show, or mark the spot for summer harvesting.

We have very large patches erythronium in woods  in Central Minnesota where big woods borders on prairie. They coexist naturally with a Actea, wood nettle, jack in the pulpit, trillium, etc

Hi Kally, thanks for your suggestions - looking at natural plant communities is a really good way of finding plants that will grow well together. I wasn't familiar with Actaea. Unfortunately it looks like apart from a few medicinal uses the red baneberry isn't actually edible, if not actually toxic, so I think I'll avoid that one!
Jack in the pulpit is a possibility though. I remember that Arum italicum cuckoo pint grows well around here and I was thinking of trying that as a root crop. The problem being that they both occupy rather the same niche as trout lily - growing and flowering in spring then going dormant.
I'm hoping that my Solomon's seal will spread in the same area - although it is a spring shoot crop rather than a root crop, it won't be a problem digging and dividing it every few years. Being much taller and with creeping rhizomes rather than clumping roots, it at least occupies a different niche in space if not quite in time.