Guilds: What They Are and How to Implement Them

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Many people have never even heard of a plant guild, and yet it is one of the cornerstones of permaculture. If you’d like to learn what guilds are and how to plan and implement them, then read on. Your plants will be very happy that you did.

Guilds create optimum growing conditions for food plants.

If you really look at nature, you’ll notice one very prominent feature – no plant grows on its own. It’s surrounded by other plants. Trees have vines climbing up them and have bushes and low growing vegetation at their feet. There are grasses, shrubs, and annuals all growing together. No one looks after them and they thrive, sometimes for centuries.

Nature has its own guilds that don't need any help from us.

For a truly happy place, we must try to emulate nature in our own sustainable food gardens and we need to know our plants intimately. How big do they get, will they grow in this climate, do they like a lot of water, do they grow in full sun or shade, how deep do their roots go, are they greedy feeders, which plants do they like being close to, which plants are detrimental to them? These are all questions that must be answered to choose the right plants for a particular area.

After all, plants are living things, not garden ornaments.

Six Basic Elements Needed to Create a Guild

Food plant (central element)
Nitrogen fixers
Dynamic accumulators
Ground cover
Attracts pollinators
Attracts predators

The plants chosen to create a guild must be compatible and their water needs should be similar. The absolute best plants are those that do more than just one thing. For example, a nitrogen fixer that attracts pollinators. Those that cover three or more elements on the list are the superstars of the show.

1. Choose the central component.

Let’s say, for example, that you want to grow a lemon tree.

Good choice. It provides shade, the established tree is drought-tolerant, and more importantly, it gives all those delicious fruits for health-giving morning lemon and ginger shots.

Lemon tree as the central element of a guild.

The tree is the very centre of the plant guild that you will be building around it. Each plant you choose for your guild must have a purpose and must be compatible with the central, most important component – the lemon tree.

2. Nitrogen fixers.

Lemon trees just love nitrogen, but instead of using bought fertilisers, plant some nitrogen-fixing plants along the drip line. Nitrogen fixers save labour, protect beneficial insects, and safeguard rivers from chemical runoff. That’s an admirable thing.

Clover as the nitrogen fixer in a plant guild. — Clovers are nitrogen fixers, ground cover, and they attract bees.

Nitrogen-fixing plants have special nodules on their roots that contain a specific bacteria. This bacteria takes nitrogen from the air and converts it into a form that is useable to plants. When the leaves of these plants fall, the nitrogen goes back into the soil. Annuals can be chopped down before they flower and left on the surface to rot down and perennials can be used for chop ’n drop.

This is one of the areas where you need to know your plant. For example, tomatoes don’t need nitrogen-fixing plants near them, otherwise they push out tons of leaves instead of tomatoes.

But back to the lemon guild. For nitrogen fixers there are several options:

Clover
Alfalfa
Beans
Lupins
Vetch

3. Dynamic accumulators.

These are plants with long roots that mine nutrients and minerals from deep in the soil where other plants can’t reach them and bring them up to feed their own leaves and flowers. Once they die down, the minerals in their cells become available to other plants. They can also be used for chop ’n drop if they’re large enough.

Borage is the dynamic accumulator element in a guild. — Borage is a dynamic accumulator and it attracts pollinators.

If you know your lemon tree, you will know that they don’t have very deep roots, so dynamic accumulators should be planted outside the dripline so as not to interfere with the lemon’s roots.

Borage
Comfrey
Dandelion
Lemon balm
Yarrow
Chickweed
Nettles
Chicory
Amaranth

4. Ground cover.

Bare ground is dead ground. The sun dries the soil and cooks the life out of it, killing off beneficial bacteria and mycelium, and causing earthworms and beneficial insects to pack up and move house.

To keep the moisture levels constant and to shade the precious soil, you either need to put a thick layer of mulch down, or you need to grow a ground cover under the tree.

Red clover makes a good ground cover for a permaculture guild. — Red clover is a ground cover, fixes nitrogen, and attracts pollinators.

If using a mulch, keep it away from the trunk where it could trap moisture and cause problems.

Nasturtium
Red clover

5. Attracts pollinators.

Even though lemon trees have their own sweet-smelling flowers, it’s always a good idea to double the odds of pollinators finding your tree. It’s better not to have competitors, like buddleia, near your tree, so choose something more suitable.

Plant sunflowers to attract bees. — Bees love sunflowers.

Mint (control that wild thing though)
Lemon balm
Thyme
Dill
Bulbinella
Marigold
Calendula
Cosmos
Sunflower
Lavender

6. Attracts predators.

If there’s one thing you don’t want in your living space, it’s commercial insecticides. Besides, they won’t be necessary if you attract the right predators to your garden.

Yarrow (attracts ladybirds which lay their eggs, which in turn hatch as rather alarming looking insects that just adore aphids, devouring them by the score.)
Dill (also attracts those much-loved ladybirds)
Lemon balm (attracts parasitic wasps that deal rather harshly with caterpillars)
Parsley (attracts those secret agent parasitic wasps)
Tansy (also works with undercover parasitic wasps)

A ladybird lava looks nothing like the adult and just adores aphids.

Final words.

There is so much more to creating a plant guild, but this is a good start. If a plant is vaguely useful in some way, it can be used in a guild design, as long as it is compatible with the central plant.

Now you know what plant guilds are and how to design them. Any desirable plant can make up the central component of a guild whether it’s a fruit or nut tree, a berry bush, or a vegetable. The vital part is that you know your plants and their habits and needs intimately, choose appropriate plants for your climate, and keep on learning.

On a final note, choose more than one type of plant in a guild so that when one is fading, there are others to shoulder the load.