To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, hobbsj@efn.org
Cc:
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Persimmon Guild
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:50:34 -0500
Jude,
JB will never read your reply, nor even this one, because he is not on
the list. I forwarded to the list with instructions in the first line to
reply directly to him. I no longer have his email address so I cannot
forward to him. If you still have the original mail you can find his
address there and actually get your message to him which I'm sure he
will appreciate (even if he, like some of my students tend to do, turns
it into holy writ and thinks he can ONLY plant what you planted and find
that many of them fail to thrive if he's in North Carolina, for example).
This guild business is consistently overcomplicated in many folks minds
who seem to think it has hard and fast rules when it is really only a
young science suggesting a rough outline to create a cooperative
polyculture family of elements that get along with each other by
including plants that provide nutrients, attract beneficials, create
mulch, control diseases, suppress grasses, etc. We could, and will most
likely, create hundreds of "recipes" for guilds that work with
persimmons (or almonds or sassafras) and they would all be right, or
not, for the region in which we are working. JB seems to think that he
is "stuck" with the image of an apple guild but in fact is likely to do
just fine using the very same guild as he selected for the apples (which
he does not describe but perhaps lifted whole cloth from Toby's book. He
also neglects to tell us where he is located, nor have we asked). The
guild concept, even though there are historical precedents, is a field
of experimentation and discovery. The limit to our design is the degree
of familiarity with at least hundreds of plant choices. Its the GENERAL
PATTERN of mutually beneficial influences that are the point and
secondarily the local-conditions-specific options, which are themselves
hugely variable.
Someone, someday, might write The Bible of Plant Guilds, but I find
myself hoping it doesn't happen. For the cultic mind it just becomes
another crutch to replace thoughtful observation.
(If anyone detects a mood of agravation in this its because I'm
struggling at my personal limits of understanding around shopping carts,
SQL, PHP and other arcane subjects. Please forgive me.)
K
J Hobbs wrote:
Hello JB.
I, too, love persimmons-- especially dried. I planted a 'Fuyu' in
front of our office in Eugene, Oregon. Finally produced fruit after 7
years!! It is a mid-story plant with a 50 year old Acer macrophyllum
(Bigleaf maple) as an overstory to the Northwest -- as a persimmon
guild I planted Lonicera piliata (evergreen honeysuckle), pyracantha
prostrata, Lion's Mane- which blooms a similar color to the ripe
persimmon, yarrow, echinacea- germander, low gro companula,
bulbs-daffodils, violas, daylillies, african daisies, heirloom roses
from original planting, Arbutus unedo (strawberry tree,) Ceonothus 'Pt.
Reyes' (as N-fixer), low ground covers, Arctostaphylos uva ursi
(Kinnickinnick- on south edge) Asarum caudatum (wild ginger on north
side) ...
That's all I can think of, at the moment..
Good Luck,
Jude
I'm familiar on a basic/moderate level with guild design and the
principals used to determine good ecological foodscapes... however, i
haven't gotten past what i've read on more than a basic level... what i
mean by that is that i understand the principals in the apple guild and
the walnut guild, but when it comes to building something around a
persimmon or an almond or a sassifrass, i'm stuck trying to apply the
same principals to those trees as are applied to the walnut and apple,
and while i think that it would work, its probably not going to work as
well as if things were geared toward the individual trees specifically.
So, what i ask of you is either one of two things.
1) A list of several successful guild designs that you've created
(especially one built with the persimmon... I just love persimmons)
2) A reference that would provide that knowledge, or explain it better
than i already know.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, i do mean that. Permaculture has
become probably the most active interest i've ever had, and this is
where i'm stuck right now. Thank you very much.
JB
--
Keith Johnson
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 1209
Black Mountain, NC 28711
(828)669-6336