The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Choosing Plant Groupings for the Forest Garden

Primary habitats


Based on the wetland and eventual canopy locations, I filled in plant groupings on the map above.  This was a pretty complicated step, which I'll go into in far more detail than you'll care for.  First, I listed all of the plants I was interested in growing, focussing mainly on plants which will increase fertility of the soil but throwing in some nectary and edible plants as well.  Then I narrowed the plant list down to those which I can get my hands on for free (primarily on my own property), or which I'm willing to spend money on.

Next, I grouped the plants of interest into categories based on disturbance intensity, sun/shade, and moisture level.  The categories are as follows:

If you're still reading, here was my reasoning behind choosing individual species.  First, the uses which are important to me.

The top species before I narrowed it down (with ones I have nearby marked with an asterisk):

Name
Use
Habitat
*Hazel
edible, fertility (coppice)
sun
River cane
building material
wet, sun
Ramps
edible, nectary
shade
Cranberry
edible, ground cover
wet, sun
*Willow
fertility (coppice)
wet, sun
Alder
fertility (nitrogen fixer, coppice)
wet, sun
Currants
edible, nectary
sun to shade
*Violet
fertility (dynamic accumulator), ground cover
sun to shade
*Groundnut
fertility (nitrogen fixer), ground cover, nectary, edible
sun
*Yarrow
fertility (dynamic accumulator), nectary, ground cover
sun
*Chives
fertility (dynamic accumulator), edible, nectary, ground cover
sun
*German chamomile
fertility (dynamic accumulator), edible
sun
*Horsetail
fertility (dynamic accumulator)
wet, partial shade
*Lemon balm
fertility (dynamic accumulator), nectary, groundcover
sun
*Spearmint
fertility (dynamic accumulator), edible, nectary, groundcover
sun
*Watercress
fertility (dynamic accumulator), edible
sun, wet
*Comfrey
fertility (dynamic accumulator), nectary
sun
*Dandelion
fertility (dynamic accumulator), nectary, edible
sun
*Bee balm
nectary
sun
*Elderberry
edible, nectary
wet, sun
*Fennel
nectary
sun




This post is part of our Planning The Forest Garden lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries:




Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.






profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.