Plant Relationships - the game!

Here's a new game!

Plant guilds are fun to me - thinking of ways that plants rely on each other and live in communities. So the game is to think of a plant that would go well with the previous plant. The post should describe the plant with it's use or benefit and how it relates to the previous plant. It should be able to survive in a similar environment. You don't have to actually be growing them and a picture would be good. A plant should not have been mentioned in the previous 10 posts.

For example someone suggests bamboo - a clumping plant with tall useful stems that has edible shoots in spring. The next person could suggest runner beans - a nitrogen fixing plant that might climb the bamboo poles and has ornamental flowers and edible pods, leaves (and apparently roots!)

So I'm going to start with the classic permaculture plant - Comfrey. This has deep roots that bring nutrients to the plant, so that it has Nitrogen and Potassium rich leaves. It has medicinal uses and attractive flowers for pollinators.

Comfrey blossom and pollinator

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How about Italian Prune Plum? My tree seems much happier since I planted some around 1/4 of its drip line.

Unfortunately, the deer discovered they don't mind eating comfrey this summer, so I may now have to find a way to protect that area... sigh...

Ill play...

Since most fruit trees would likely be happy with a nearby comfry companion, especially on steeper slopes, ill go with another classic permie plant that is well represented in these forums.

Malus domestica...the common Apple, of which there are many thousands of cultivars- potentially over 7,500 varieties. Here in Poland i recently took note of some names found at the local market, which included "Czempion", "Ligol", "Alwa", "Princ", "Empajer", "Renata", "Lobo", "Koksa", "Starking", "Rubin", and "Golden." Poland is one of the leading producers worldwide, despite being a relatively small country in comparison to China and US, who take the top two positions.

The better known uses of Apple include juice, cider, wine, vinegar, sauces, jellies, cakes and pies, stuffing, butter, dried chips, and probably much more. Also a source of pectin. For just about any use there is a variety found that will be more ideal. Many have been lost over time due to changing growing environments and commercialized profit driven motives in cultivar selection, or simply because a family held variety was not perpetuated by the younger generation.  Livestock, such as pigs, love the discarded dropping fruits, and so do cows and chickens.  The flowers are also a great forage for bees, especially with a wider range of varieties grown that can provide the flowers earlier and later in the seasons. Apple wood is considered some of the best for shaping food containers and utensils. Excellent firewood, which can also be used for smoking meats. The tree canopy can also provide a lovely cooling summer shade.  

As far as associates/companions it is said that morel mushrooms like to grow in apple orchards, but since these are technically not plants, ill say that a nice diversity of flowering lower level ground covers will make for excellent companions, such as chamomile, mints, lavender, clover, fennel, nasturtium, dill, dandelions, borage, echinacea...

(Main source used to collect some of this info: "Permacopia" Book II by D. Hunter Beyer and Dr. Franklin Martin)

OK, Good try both of you!
Jay was first to post, although forgot to mention the uses (I assume it's fruit?) Arthur - great answer, although you don't need to go into detail of further companion plants for your plant - that's for the next answer! Both are fruit trees though, so we'll go with Jay's since she was slightly first!

So Italian Prune tree is a fruit tree that would benefit from pollinating insects so I'll suggest marigolds (calendula) to attract them:

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Marigolds/Calendula are flowering plants with edible and medicinal flowers which attract pollinating insects.

So what else might like Calendula?

In the more tropical and subtropical regions Taro (Colocasia esculenta) can often have a hard time with Hawkmoth caterpillars, which often chomp on their leaves down to the bare stems.  Some of the best companions to have around are those that can attract parasitic wasps to lay their eggs in the caterpillars, which is what Calendula can do!

I think Calendula and Taro can be buddies.  

Taro is a very ancient staple food with thousands of varieties, and has a special relationship with water.  Often times the water will drip from the tips of the leaves - helping to hydrate others nearby. The process is call "Guttation."

OK, I'll have a stab at this, although I'm not so familiar with more tropical vegetation. I'm thinking that the taro will cast some shade as well as moisture, so a ground cover plant might grow around it nicely.
New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides) is a spreading tender plant that has edible leaves that can be used as green like spinach. It is quite shallow rooted and makes a good groundcover.

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Since New Zealand Spinach is more shallow rooted it would likely not be very competitive with anything that has deeper roots. This could help in keeping the ground from baking in the sun and preventing excessive evaporation, while providing shelter to soil improving organisms, such as worms or insects.  

I think the possibilities are almost endless for suitable companions with this species.  Ill try to pick something a little bit easier this time...

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) is a versatile edible. In cooking it can be steamed, boiled, sautéed, braised, or fried, and incorporated into many different kinds of dishes, such as stews, sauces, salads, or pickled. It also has use as a thickening agent, Even the young leaves, flowers, and buds can be boiled as vegetables. The dried seeds can be a source of protein, and can be made into a coffee substitute, or as vegetable cheese, tofu, or tempeh.  

An excellent quality paper can be made from the stems.

It can act as a short lived trellis for other plants.  

It grows fast, so if there is a need to cover the ground quickly this could be a good species to broadcast the seeds of.  

I'd put some peas growing up the okra - we haven't had a legume yet. Nitrogen fixing to benefit the okra, okra supplying climbing frame. Choose a variety that won't exceed the okra. Harvest two crops at the same time, with luck!
On the others to date, sweet cicely enjoys living under apples, but you'll have problems digging the roots out if you want to harvest them. The whole plant is useful for a liquorice/aniseed flavour, and, with self-sown dandelions, may attract insects to prey on you codling moths.
Taro, and related eddo, like it wet: calendula and NZ spinach better suit well drained - but they may work where you live. Angelica may be a better attractant - the wild one in the UK is found in wet soils. It's a tall umbellifer, with distinctive flavour, the stem typically used candied; I've not tried it otherwise.
So, what else with peas?

I'll give peas a chance....

Peas can be grown up wigwams to make a shady spot - handy for leafy greens such as lettuce that might struggle in full sun. Lettuce are edible salad plants, with fairly shallow roots that (in my experience!) slugs love. The milky sap can be slightly soporific.


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Do you know who mingles well with lettuce?

Who protects our leafy friends from aphids by detering them?

The humble Chive.



Chives are one of my favorite herbs personally. They can be added to many dishes.

Fun game! I'll play.

Okay, so... the problem with chives is that the clumps will eventually get infiltrated by grass. So we need something that's selectively allelopathic against grass. I've read that Caragana arborescens (Siberian pea shrub) fits the bill. It's also a nitrogen fixer, and potentially edible if you want to risk it (contains canavanine, which can give you a sort of chemically induced lupus at large doses, and possibly other nasty chemistry...) If you don't want to eat it regularly, it might still work as a last resort famine food, or possibly chicken feed.

I agree, this does sound fun! Although I only know of one Siberian pea shrub, I’m more familiar with the hops vine. I think they could grow together, the hops trellising up the bush, considering where the pea shrub was growing—not exactly the rich, deep riparian soils that hops likes, but near a pond in an ornamental planting. Hops have flowers and seeds that have bitter and sedative qualities and (obligatory mention) are popular for use in beer-making. The spring shoots are also good to eat cooked; they’re thin, but where they grow abundant you can collect enough to make a tasty dish. I have also used the stem fibers as dental floss in winter.

The nitrogen fixing qualities of the caragana should also help the hops with their love of nutrients.

I've actually been thinking of what to grow near my hops and remembered this game!

my hops and their new climbing frame

So I'm thinking something with shallow mat-like roots with broad leaves that cover the soil and mulch the hops over winter. I actually think that ladies mantle (Alchemilla sp.) will do the trick. It is a native plant here and the leaves hold the dew beautifully. It has lime green flowers, and is medicinal and edible.

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I’m interested in lady’s mantle being edible—how is it eaten? Young leaves as a cooked green or pot herb I’m guessing?

Last fall I planted some lady’s mantle as a ground cover for jostaberry, and the pairing seems to be working out well. But I like gooseberry, one of their ancestor species, better, and so I’ll suggest gooseberry. (If any jostaberry people want to expound their merits, then please do so.) Gooseberries are a delicious, sweet fruit-bearing shrub, and at least the wild ones can tolerate poor, sometimes dry mountain soils, which if I understand it are also conditions tolerated by lady’s mantle. In this situation the lady’s mantle protects and holds together the thin mountain soils while keeping away weedy growth that could overtop the plant. Gooseberry’s thorns make them hard to weed, so a low-growing, early, weed-suppressing companion can be helpful.

My current picture shows the jostaberry, but I would like to try the companioning with gooseberry too.

Up here in my neck of the woods, the wild rose mingles with about all of the berries. I wonder if that is true in lower latitudes as well.

This year we had an early bloom. Sometimes we get two blooms. The pedal is sweet and the hips have vitamin C and a little sweet and pumpkin like after a frost. I suppose one could combine a jostaberry and rose pedal for a jam.

Cool game. Where will it lead?