This is a good video on natural tree guilds:
Nature likes to make little patches of associated species.
Sometimes, we’ve partly planned out a food forest island, and then nature has planted more. If we like it, we keep it; if not, we don’t – like Jess taking out the poison ivy in this video.
A wax myrtle showed up next to one of my plums. Since it’s a native nitrogen-fixer, I left it alone to grow. However, we also get popcorn trees showing up all through the food forest, and we eliminate those with extreme prejudice.
At the edges, we get lots of wild blackberries. And out front I discovered a mulberry seedling earlier this week. In my North Florida food forest, beauty berries and wild plums showed up all over. Some of them we let grow, some of them we mow.
Nature fills in the gaps!
