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guilds of plants.

 
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a firts bit of list
I don't have any guilds of plants so i can't imagine writting a long list on my own. The thing is that if you don't write it down when you here of one it might get forgotten by me at anyrate.


Mulberry and citrus trees and shallow rooted evergreens.

Mulbery improves soils,it is an accumulator and acellarator.( i will have to look that up) and so very good for the soil and the plants that grow around it. It  helps shallow rooted plants like citrus.and shallow rooted evergreens.

    From the magazine, Future Designers Permaculture, article, mimicking microclimates (story). About the Janahn Forest biomass project. www.janahn.com.au 
 
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jerusalem artichoke(Helianthus tuberosus) with groundnut(Apios americana)

-the jerusalem artichoke grows tall and acts as a trellis to support the vining groundnut

-in return the groundnut fixes nitrogen into the soil, feeding the artichokes

-both plants produce a yield of tubers, the groundnut also yields small bean/pea-like edible pods, and the artichoke also produces a sunflower head which can be fed to livestock

**these plants in combination are pretty good at keeping weeds at bay
 
Travis Philp
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fava beans with brussels sprouts and cucumber

-the fava beans can be planted first to fix nitrogen into the soil or at the same time as the cukes and sprouts(I suppose bush beans could work as well)

-the cucumbers are put in either as seed or transplant and act as a ground cover, choking out most weeds (as long as their growth is vigorous enough)

-the brussels sprouts..when the sprouts get to about an inch in size, the leaves are supposed to be cut off and discarded, so instead of taking them to a compost pile you can either eat them or use them as chop and drop mulch if your cucumbers have missed covering some spots.

**I also wonder if you could grow a short climbing pea up the stalk of the brussels sprouts...
 
Travis Philp
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strawberries with chives and borage

-the strawberries provide ground cover, fruit, and leaves for tea

-the chives provide herb crop, mulch, aromatic insectiary deterrant, and can produce edible flowers to attract pollinators (if you let it grow out that long)

-the borage provide edible greens, and edible flower pods/flowers to attract pollinators
 
Travis Philp
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maple trees (Acer spp.) with wild ginger, hardy kiwi, wild leeks, and welsh onions
*I've seen this guild in nature (maple, onions, and ginger) but have added the kiwi and leeks as theoretical speculative additions. I substituted the welsh onions for the ones I found in the natural guild because these onions were about the size of an eraser-head and very tough to find in the soil. Plus I don't know their given name...


-the maple trees provide sap for syrup,  mulch through dropped autumn leaves, and eventual timber source

-the wild ginger provides a thick ground cover, and food/medicine *caution: evidence of possible link to wild ginger and liver damage is out there

-the kiwi theoretically could grow up the trunks of the maples, taking advantage of the vertical space (could the non-fruiting plants be cut for mulch?)

-the leeks provide one of the first foods of spring, grass suppression, and I assume aromatic insect suppression/confusion

-the onions are much the same as the leeks but can be harvested not only in spring as green onions but later in the season as small bulbs
 
Travis Philp
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Here's a fruit guild I'm developing as I type here so it may be flakey:

asian pear with seaberry aka seabuckthorn and alder(kept small by pollarding), along with clover, lupin, horse radish, currants, gooseberries, blackberries and/or raspberries, curly dock, yellow dock, and/or burdock, groundnut, and strawberries...

-the pear provides fruit and dropped mulch in autumn

-the seaberry provides fruit, dropped mulch, and fixes nitrogen into the soil

-the alder provides chop n drop mulch/firewood, and fixes nitrogen into soil

-the clover and lupin provide nitrogen fixing ground cover and flowers for insect attraction

-the horse radish is planted in a ring around the base of the fruit trees to suppress grass, provide a leaf crop, and/or chop n drop mulch

-the currants & gooseberries drop leaves in fall, can fruit in 40% shade with no visible loss of its berry crop yield

-the blackberries/raspberries provide a berry crop and tea leaf crop, drop leaves in fall, and could be positioned in thick patches along the guild edge to keep deer at bay (this is a guess due to their thorns)

-the docks provide root crop yield, medicine, and chop n drop mulch

-the groundnut fixes nitrogen, bears edible pods and tubers, and utilizes the verticle layer (not sure what it would best grow on...the pear or the seaberry? or would that be to the detriment of the fruit trees?)

-the strawberries provide fruit and tea leaf crop, insect attracting flowers, and act as a ground cover

*** A windbreak/frost break of some sort of evergreen tree would be good to add onto the north and west sides as well and could possibly act as  a trellis for a vining crop like wild grape or hardy kiwil
 
Travis Philp
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Black Walnut Guild: According to the following source: http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=permaculture+guilds+black+walnut&d=5036429035636574&mkt=en-CA&setlang=en-CA&w=ec550b8f,12181ba5

autumn olive-fixes nitrogen, produces olive crop and reportedly grows better with walnut than say black locust because it doesn't compete as much and reduces deer browse.

What naturally grows under Black Walnut?

Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Pawpaw (Asimina triloba), and Spicebush
(Calycanthus occidentalis) grow as understory shrubs under Black Walnut
naturally in Central Illinois. Ground level  wildflowers are no less
abundant under Black Walnuts than in other natural forest communities.

What productive plants can grow under Black Walnut?

(in no particular order)
American Black Currant - Ribes americanum
European Currant - Ribes nigra, Ribes rubrum, Ribes alba
Missouri Gooseberry - Ribes missouriensis
American Elderberry - Sambucus canadensis
Black Raspberry - Rubus ideaus
Siberian Pea Shrub - Caragana arboescens
Mulberries - Morus nigra, Morus alba
Alpine Strawberries - Fragaria vesca
Goldenseal - Hydrastis canadensis
Wild Ginger - Asarum canadense
Pawpaw - Asimina triloba
Redbud - Cercis canadensis - legume
Bamboo - Phyllostachys spp.
"Rose of Sharon" Hibiscus - Hibiscus Syriacus
Lamb's Quarters - Chenopodium alba
Catnip - Nepata cataria
Daylily - Hemerocallis sp
Sunchokes - Helianthus tuberosa

Dandelions, Violets and Creeping Charlie have also grown naturally in Illinois Black Walnut Guilds. Toby Hemenway mentions Woldberry (Lycium spp)


 
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Travis you devil, your really on a roll - when you get this all done would you like to post the final as a wiki article?
 
Travis Philp
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Uhm, sure but first I need to know how to do that. Wiki's are a mystery to me.

I think I'm done for now if thats what you mean.
 
rose macaskie
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wow that title has bought out some information. rose
 
Travis Philp
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I don't know why I didn't start a thread like this before but thanks for doing it Rose. I suppose I got caught up in all the other threads.

Here's a link outlining a blueberry/willow guild

http://www.permaculture.info/index.php/Willow/blueberry_guild
 
Travis Philp
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tomatoes with lettuce, basil, and squash

-the tomatoes provide fruit and shade for the lettuce

-the lettuce grow in the shade of the tomatoes and provide a single head or cut-and-come-again food source

-the basil offers aromatic insecticidal properties and herb crop

-the squash acts as a ground cover and provides storable winter crop

*I could see the squash getting out of control so take this into account when planting
 
rose macaskie
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it was paul wheaton who said somthing about writting about the plants that go together in some thread though i might thave thought of it any way i am gettign better at thinking of threads
    My authour for the uses of trees says that alder goes with clay soils   so wiht pastrure on wet land and all the things travis mentions. He only mentions one poplar growing in Spain that likes clay soils and that a Spanish cross breed, he says for clay soils alder and salixes, willows. rose.
 
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I was reading a Spainish google article about juniperus thurifera, i don't know if i can find it again and he said that there are mummy juniperus thrufera trees that help small trees on. So a parent juniper for a baby juniper. Maybe this is why mulberries are good for shallow rooted evegreens the thign i first metionedv that i found from www.janahn.com.au.
 
rose macaskie
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pampass grass and maple.
I planted a small grass i bought and it turned into pampas grass, just next to my back door. I planted a japanese maple on finding i could not buy a local one right next to it thinking my very hard successfull pampas grass would take all the nutrient from the tree and keeping an eye on what happened and the tree was fine so pampas grass though it grows so much seems to help tree put next to it.
bamboo and cherry.
  the same happened with the bamboo i had a bamboo that was doing very well and i planted a cherry those slightly bitterer cherries right up against it and thought it was a bad idea and the cherry has not needed anything, i think i did both things on the same day planted the cherry and maple on th esame day. So bamboo seems to be more of a help than a nuiscance to a baby tree. Geof Lawton says bamboo has shallow roots and so you can plant it to firm up the banks of a swale where long roots would not be such a good idea. agri rose.
 
Travis Philp
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rose macaskie wrote:
    My authour for the uses of trees says that alder goes with clay soils   so wiht pastrure on wet land and all the things travis mentions. He only mentions one poplar growing in Spain that likes clay soils and that a Spanish cross breed, he says for clay soils alder and salixes, willows. rose.



There are a variety of alders listed at this link showing a range of soil preferences.

http://nativeplants.evergreen.ca/search/search-results.php?query=%20AND%20common_name%20LIKE%20%27%24alder%24%27%20:0
 
Travis Philp
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Here's a guild for a shallow pond:

cattail (Typha latifolia ) with arrowhead aka duck potato (Sagittaria latifolia ), duckweed (Lemna minor), watercress (Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum), jewelweed aka spotted touch-me-not (Impatiens capensis) 


cattail- fixes atmospheric nitrogen into the soil, provides year round food source as all parts of the plant are edible and some are quite tasty, provides cut and come again mulch, good habitat for wetland birds

arrowhead-provides yield of tubers, cut mulch,  or wildlife forage, ducks will forage for the seeds

duckweed- grows rapidly and covers waters surface which helps lessen evapouration and mosquito breeding, used as duck feed or mulch

watercress-extremely tasty and marketable cut-and-come-again edible leaves, fast growing, rapidly covering banks and murky soils lessening erosion and evapouration

jewelweed- edible greens and showy edible flowers which attract pollinators (especially loved by honey bees), can be cut for mulch, medicinal- its a cure for poison ivy
 
Travis Philp
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With this guild my thinking was that I wanted to have companions for potatoes but the problem is that I heavily mulch potatoes with hay and nearby weeds once or twice a month so theres a risk of burying nearby plants. So I put other plants that like to be periodically buried in mulch.

potatoes with leeks, dandelion/chicory, endive, and celery

-potatoes yield tubers

-leeks yield a one time or cut-and-come-again crop, they also are apparently able to deter pests via aromatic confusion

-the celery yields a cut-and-come-again or one-time crop

-endive- blanched and harvested as cut-and-come again or one-time crop

-the dandelion/chicory can be closely planted to any of the others in this guild as it has a deep root system. The dandelions deep roots bring up nutrients from the sub soil that the other plants don't have access to. It can be buried in mulch for blanched leaves, and can provide a root harvest.
 
Travis Philp
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I suppose Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) could be added to the above guild as its leaf stalks and base are often blanched. It has deep spike roots and therefore wouldn't compete for nutrients with the many shallow rooted plants in this guild. If you leave it to flower, the blooms are very showy (showey?) and would attract beneficial insects and birds.
 
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Wow!  There are so many good lists of permaculture guilds available on line.  One other good place to start is with Toby Hemenways book, Gaia's Garden.  Besides being one of the best overall books on permaculture it also has lots of plant lists and suggested guild combinations.  Many are specific to the Pacific Northwest, but many are for other regions as well.

When permaculture first appeared in North America in the 1980's we had to figure out guilds from scratch through trial and error.  That was almost 30 years ago and some really good research has successfully been done since then.  Perhaps the best way to start is to visit Zone 5 in your area.  What plants naturally grow together?  What natural guilds exist under different conditions such as in sun, shade, low or high water areas, and so forth.
 
Travis Philp
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Larry, do you have links to guild lists? I've tried looking for them on search engines and have found a few but mostly when I search 'permaculture plant guilds' and other similar words, I get results like the 'oregon permaculture guild' or basic 'what is permaculture' sites and not specific plant guild examples.

I'd rather build on the shoulders of giants and learn from their mistakes than make the same ones over again.

 
larry korn
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Boy, I don't have the sites at hand but will try to dig them out.  Gaia's Garden has some good suggestions.  Try midwestpermaculture.com  They have some good listserve activity.  How about permies.com?
 
Travis Philp
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Yeah, Gaia's Garden is a great place to start. A friend told me that the revised edition has even more guild examples. That book really helped me gain a greater understanding of guilds. 

That midwestpermaculture site is a great lead. Thanks Larry.
 
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My guild searches usually omit the word "guild." 

I have good success with "x companion planting," and failing that, "x companion planting y." Earlier today, I put together a planting bed on my patio, so x = potato.

Some of the results for that were more comprehensive than others, some more rigorous. Apparently flax, marigolds, and carrots are also good companions to potatoes.
 
Travis Philp
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the following is a guild I found in nature that grows extremely well which would be suitable for wet areas. though I could only guess to know the benefits for any of the plants...

ostrich ferns, stinging nettles, currants, wild cucumber, with windbreaks of cedar

I found a spot that is several acres of pretty much exclusively this guild and it is like walking into heaven. It is mostly ferns, with nettles being the next most prolific plant, and currants and wild cucumber being about even in population. The cedars are mature but there are pockets of several hundred square feet here and there where they are completely devoid, allowing sunny pockets for the understory to thrive. Though the wild cucumber is not edible, their fruit dries out and produces golfball sized skeletons that make great exfoliators. I assume ddible cucumber could be put in place of the wild variety.

The soil is mucky with a high water table, and a 4' wide stream meandering through.
 
                              
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Hi Travis

I tried the link for the willow/blueberry guild a few posts back but it didn't work for me.  I'd love to see the info.

Thanks
 
Travis Philp
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I'm not sure whats up with that link. Unfortunately I can't find a working link to that. I also don't remember off hand what was in the guild. Apologies...
 
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So excited to learn about guilds.  I"ve been saying I was going to do companion planting on steroids because I didn't know the terminology.  I worked on a seed chart grouping plants together for sun, wind protection, pest control etc.  This is a great site for companion planting and one of the main sources I used to help me with my chart.  Best one I've seen because it includes plants that help other plants with pest management. 

We are about to plant blueberries and I was very happy to find out in another thread that they go well with Juniper.  We have tons of those!

http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html#SAGE

 
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I recommend the book carrots love tomatoes.  It is a good reference book for companion planting of herbs, and veggies.  I learned a lot more from the older editions then the new one.  The newer versions have lots of pretty drawings of template gardens.  The older versions tell you things like Hemp used to be grown with cabbage to protect the cabbage from White Cabbage Butterfly.

 
rose macaskie
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by following joel hollingsworth advise and googling the name of the plant I was interested  in and the words "companion  planting" in this case, " beeches companion planting" or some such, it was  a stupid question i have read that bech leaves are allelopathetic so nothing grows near them, i found the information that euphorbias go well with apples as apples like phosphorus. I have tried to find it again and cant.  agri rose macaskie.
 
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Back to the potato guild.  Pole and bush beans are great with potatoes.

Beans repel the Colorado potato beetle
Potatoes repel the Mexican bean beetle
 
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Planting this blueberry guild this spring in a raised bed near a pine tree for pine needle (acidic) mulch:

Blueberry, Bearberry (kinnikinnick) for groundcover + medicinal properties and edible berries, and wild lupine for nitrogen fixing. Also thinking about false indigo for nitrogen fixing, sound good? The key here is that they all do well in acidic soil.
 
Jamie Jackson
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This is one of the rare times I just want to print a whole post.
 
Isaac Hill
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Also planting a food forest size guild of 2 English Walnut, Black locust (some mature trees already there, volunteers will be encouraged,) Pawpaw, Mulberry (as a barrier to the more traditional fruit food forest) and currants/gooseberries/jostaberries and various herbs in the understory.
 
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Is there a difference between companion planting and guilds?
Companions which are beneficial in on region may not be in the other, because i.e the insect they repel is not present.
 
John Polk
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To me, companion planting and guilds are the same.  Companion planting is not limited to repelling insects.  It is about plants that, in one way or another, help each other.  Beans and corn help each other...beans provide nitrogen to heavy feeding corn, while the corn provides shade, and a pole for the bean to climb.  Tomatoes and basil grown side by side will each have more flavor (their marriage begins long before the consummation in the kitchen).  Not all companion plants, however, belong in a guild, as one that helps some members of the guild, may also harm others.
 
                                
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These guilds occur is Western North Carolina and are taken from Zev Freidman's observations:

Sugar maple, basswood, spice bush, hazelnut coppice, ginseng,ramps, groundnut

Kudzu,wineberry,stinging nettle,honey locust, elderberry, burdock--- Although I DO NOT suggest ever planting kudzu, if it is already there, you should eat it!!


Traci
 
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Has anyone try to create a kind of guild with cane fruit like raspberry or blackberry, and tall tree? For cane fruit it is usually necessary to make a trellis, but they never grow too big. If a tree can serve as a trellis, maybe cane fruit bush can serve as a protection from rabbits and deers? It would require maybe to leave some of lower branches on fruit tree, so that cane bush has something to hold on, but will it work like this? In that case, old branches of cane fruit can be removed in the spring time, leaving a space for new ones.
 
Jamie Jackson
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We have quite a bit of raspberry under our oaks and they seem to do fine together.
 
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my experience is they dont climb the tree, but grow into a giant ball/mess at the bottom. planting thornless blackberries is a smart idea.
 
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