North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Richard Moyer" <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

Ethan,

Some thoughts for your planting, some may have already been mentioned:

Those doing better with more sun:

Hackberry and/or sugarberry for late fall/winter nibbles.  Interesting corky bark.  Will bear as a canopy tree, as an edge plant or as shrub if dwarfed by root restriction.

Sumac for drinks.  Attractive thickets.

Native thicket forming plums such as Chickasaw

Amelanchier 'Regent' is a saskatoon that spreads asexually, 4-6 ft bush.

Ribes odoratum 'Crandall' spreads as well.  Great jam.

Black locust flowers make good fritters, and wood is excellent fuel, rot resistant posts; but thorny when young especially after coppicing.  Spreads well.

Passiflora incarnata a tasty fruit, spreads, climbs and beautiful blooms (check cold hardiness).

Viburnum prunifolium

Elderberry

Native river cane for stakes.

Native black raspberries

More shade tolerant:

Wineberries are naturalized but not native.  Perhaps most productive Rubus in minimal light conditions. One of the better behaved nonnatives in our area.

Mahonia "Oregon grape" will bloom very early and bear with no direct sun whatsoever.  Native to Pacific NW, but naturalized in my area.  Try to find one with less bitter fruit.

Lindera benzoin (sp?) "Allspice".  An understory plant used for tea and spice.

Smilax vine for green nibble, some fruit reputed edible.  Nasty thorns.  Can grow from edge through interior.  Select for best flavored growing tips.

 

Herbaceous edibles for interior:

Remember to include chickweed (Stellaria) for winter greens and

Nettles for spring cooked greens.  Chickweed under quick-rotting leaves such as walnut will give salad greens Dec-March if minimal snow cover and few single digit nights.  Both chickweed and netttles will produce in heavy shade before leaves above fully out.

Mayapples fruit in heavy or dappled shade, but not every year.  Will spread via roots. 

 

Herbaceous edibles better on a wooded edge: 

Lambsquarters give greens a bit later than nettles, readily self-seeds.  Some related forms have a red fruit that is somewhat insipid.

Burdock also naturallized.  Edible root, huge leaves can make a decent living mulch.

Pokeweed also a spring green, nice ornamental with red stem, dark berry clusters.

 

Doubtless more possibilities but enough for now!

 

 

Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:50:00 -0500
From: "ethan roland" eroland@gmail.com

Thanks for your note! I appreciate you concern for my young forest garden
and my  ecological neighbours. I truly do not feel this is an appropriate
forum to dive into the invasives/natives discussion, but I would like to
clarify for folks that all the species I asked about are 'native' to North
America, and only one (Glyccyrhiza lepidota, American licorice) is not
specifically 'native' to the Eastern Forests - instead, it hails from the
great midwestern prairies.

The running/suckering characteristic is one I am especially interested in
for this specific forest garden design -- I am looking at low-maintenance,
ecosystemically-based methods for establishing highly productive fruit + nut
trees (persimmon, pawpaw, chestnut, hickory) to supply my family with local,
fossil-fuel-free foods.

If anyone has other suggestions for more 'native' species that can fill the
ecological community niche I'm looking for (woody, running/suckering,
nitrogen-fixing, fuel-making, food-producing, medicinal, small shrubs or
herbaceous perennials), please let me know. I am indeed in a very
experimental phase here, and I welcome input + discussion about this little
forest garden design.

Cheers,
Ethan