apple guild input requested

Have a favorite apple tree that I need to stabilize the roots.  It keeps trying to tip over.  Otherwise it is a great little apple - my favorite.

Searching online I find that horseradish and garlic chives are supposed to be good under apples; I have both in abundance.  I reallize that once I start them in that spot they will be permanent plantings as they grow like crazy. 

Any inputs before I get started?  This is my favorite of my four apples and I don't want to screw it up.

The example guild in Gaia's garden has a ring of alliums or daffodils around the mature drip line of the tree, and also a smaller ring around the trunk. It has a nitrogen fixing bush like goumi under the tree while it's young, which gets removed as the tree matures. At that point, the nitrogen fixing bushes can be close-by the tree but not under it. The roots have a larger range then to find nitrogen.

Other suggested plants under the tree are insectory plants (lemon balm, dill), soft-leaved mulch plants (comfrey, artichoke), nutrient accumulators (plantain, yarrow). If you don't want an N bush under the tree you could plant something like lupine, vetch or beans.

South Carolina wrote:
Have a favorite apple tree that I need to stabilize the roots.  It keeps trying to tip over.  Otherwise it is a great little apple - my favorite.

Searching online I find that horseradish and garlic chives are supposed to be good under apples; I have both in abundance.  I reallize that once I start them in that spot they will be permanent plantings as they grow like crazy. 

Any inputs before I get started?  This is my favorite of my four apples and I don't want to screw it up.

Have you seen these?
http://www.nfs.unl.edu/documents/spe...st/shepard.pdf
http://www.labocacenter.org/Projects...pleGuilds.aspx
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38483043/A...-Gaia-s-Garden
http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/fo...t=4072&start=0
http://bugs.scribble.com/newfiles/builds.html

I will have to do some extensive reading on the Gaias Garden site - looks like lots of good info.  I will go ahead and put the garlic chives in but will hold off on the horseradish.

you might want to put some anchors in the ground around the roots, i think I would bend an iron rod or something iron or steel or heavy wire and make some anchors and put them in the ground around the roots, apples like iron in the soil and it could help to anchor it from falling down..

try Lupine for insects and nitrogen