When thinking of plant guilds for pecan trees, remember, the nuts need to be harvested, and it is very difficult to harvest pecans amidst a jumble of plants that hide the nuts. Just before the nuts are ready to fall or be shaken down, what ever else is out there needs to be mowed flat to get to the pecans. Daffadills have been growing well around the trunk of our huge pecan we have in our front yard. Clover and dandilions do well there, and one other I would like to try is lentils that can be harvested leaving seeds for next year naturally. One other I will try, quite different from anything I have seen here is morel mushrooms! Growing naturally, they come up in late spring amidst the decaying vegetation. I live in central Georgia and just cleared a gently sloping ravine leaving volunteer pecans and hickory trees too close to each other. Removed from the area were privet and memosa trees. I will soon spread spores this spring amidst the decaying vegetation in various areas and take notes to see where they grow best. You can see how easy it is to spike your forest garden with these spores at you tube under the search for: how to grow morel mushrooms at home. After two months, the privet is beginning to sprout up, so I will go with maddox in hand to chop them down or use the mower before planting any thing else to cut them down as much as possible. I think they will die off if this is done through the summer The mushrooms will be unharmed as they grow under ground until late spring. If I could afford goats, I would fence the area in and get them to eat any shoots starting to keep them down naturally, but I cannot afford an electric fence and buy the animals. These pecans crown much higher than commercial ones, so their shadow patterns move over the ground rapidly. Once this fall comes, I will see which pecans bear well, and figure out which ones to remove so the remainder will be strong trees that will last for many years. Mushrooms are worth a serious look at to integrate them into your forest garden. Later, when things settle down and the privet and memosa trees are under control, I will add muscadine grapes to grow up those tall and spindly pecan tree trunks as they do in the wild, and between the trees, with pine straw added as mulch to lower the pH, camellia sinensis (green tea plants) will be added to harvest their leaves late spring and early summer. The lack of so much sun shine when the pecans leaf out will cause the tea bushes to put out more chlorophill, adding to the taste and nutritional value of the tea. Sorry for the spelling errors, but you get the idea. Blessings to all from central GA, USA. Oh, and I would like to find some one that could send me some wild leeks, ramps, from the mountain areas of the south east, that would be a fine addition to serve as a pest confuser.
