Trees For Permaculture Food Forest Design

Learn about the next installment of trees for food forest layers. Choose the lower canopy for permaculture food forest design.

Reader Contribution by Maddy Harland
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by AdobeStock/Konstiantyn

Learn about the next installment of trees for food forest layers. Choose the lower canopy for permaculture food forest design.

In my last blog I described how a forest garden is designed to mimic a small woodland or forest comprising up to seven ‘layers’. These are usually made up of edible, medicinal or useful plants, trees, shrubs, climbers, herbs, ground cover and bulbs or tubers. I also explained what kind of trees you can choose to make up the tallest part of the canopy.

I suggested Mulberry, as one option. The variety ‘Illinois Everbearing’ is our variety of choice because it is almost seedless, hardy, with long yields though the summer and it fruits relatively quickly in its growing life. Since writing the blog, my two mulberry trees have come into fruit. Whereas a friend’s mulberry planted like an ornamental in a more conventional garden has been raided by the birds, mine are nestling at the back of my forest garden, peaking out above the lower trees in its own eco-system, another advantage of my semi-wild forest garden.

The Next Layer:

Small Trees & Large Shrubs

  • Updated on May 15, 2023
  • Originally Published on Jul 22, 2011
Tagged with: forest gardening, heritage varieties, Maddy Harland, Reader Contributions, relocalization, rootstocks, Trees
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