Build a food garden around fruit trees and hazel, with berry bushes, a raspberry row, perennial kitchen crops and low picking edges. These 12 species give you a useful range of harvests and plant forms. Establish the woody structure first, then add the lower layers as you learn how light and moisture vary across your garden.
Choose a plant to explore its role, growing space and sources. Focus on one planting area or explore the whole selection.
Lines connect plants to their planned planting area. Colours and icons show the primary plant layer. This is a schematic; use the growing notes to set spacing.
Choose any plant in the diagram to see its role, placement and supporting sources.
Temperate Northwest Europe; adapt to your local climate and site.
Plan this across a garden, allowing each mature tree and shrub its own footprint. The catalogue's pear can reach 13 m tall and 8 m wide; its apple is listed at 7 m by 6 m. A smaller plan depends on a nursery-confirmed rootstock and training system. Keep berry beds and kitchen patches outside dense shade and the young trees' clear rooting areas. Twelve species is a plant palette: pollination partners and repeated edging plants can require more than twelve individual plants.
Each plant has a place in the design. Explore its role, growing needs and the sources behind the selection.
Separate sunny apple and pear positions, with room for their mature crowns and harvesting access.
A hazel bay and open berry bushes along the brighter woodland edge; leave each plant its own space.
A sunny, accessible row on its own supports, where spreading canes can be managed.
Separate rhubarb and sorrel patches, plus contained lemon balm, close to a picking path.
Reachable strawberry and chive patches in sun or light shade, clear of tree trunks.
Malus domestica
Apple canopy and autumn fruit
Planting area: Fruit-tree canopy
Apple suits a sunny, sheltered position with draining soil. Rootstock and training determine the space required.
Where it fits Mark its mature crown before placing lower layers. Check the chosen cultivar's apple pollination partner and flowering group.
Pyrus communis
Second fruit-tree crop
Planting area: Fruit-tree canopy
Pear adds another fruit crop but needs a warm, sunny position, protection from late frost and a suitable rootstock.
Where it fits Give it a separate crown footprint. Confirm a compatible pear pollinator or a suitable self-fertile cultivar; the apple is not its pollination partner.
Corylus avellana
Nut-bearing woody layer
Planting area: Hazel and berry edge
Hazel provides nuts and a substantial shrub layer. Cropping benefits from sun or light shade and compatible cross-pollination.
Where it fits Reserve a separate sheltered bay. Plan for its full spread and verify compatible nearby hazel or another suitable plant before relying on a nut crop.
Ribes rubrum
Redcurrant harvest
Planting area: Hazel and berry edge
Redcurrant tolerates partial shade, with later ripening and less sweetness than in sun.
Where it fits Use a bright outer edge, allowing 1.2–1.5 m between bush plants and an accessible picking side.
Ribes nigrum
Blackcurrant harvest
Planting area: Hazel and berry edge
Blackcurrant adds a distinct summer crop and prefers fertile, moisture-retentive soil with good drainage.
Where it fits Give each bush an open, moist position, with 1.5–1.8 m between blackcurrants according to vigour.
Ribes uva-crispa
Gooseberry harvest
Planting area: Hazel and berry edge
Gooseberry tolerates light shade, although a sunny position favours sweeter fruit and heavier crops.
Where it fits Allow 1.2–1.5 m between bushes and picking space around prickly stems. Keep it back from the path's narrowest point.
Rubus idaeus
Managed cane-fruit crop
Planting area: Supported raspberry row
Raspberries prefer sun, fertile draining soil and reliable moisture. A dedicated row makes their supports and renewal pruning accessible.
Where it fits Install supports on the sunny edge, apart from shrub crowns. Use 40–60 cm between plants and remove suckers outside the allocated row.
Rheum rhabarbarum, Rheum x hybridum
Spring rhubarb stalks
Planting area: Perennial kitchen patches
Culinary rhubarb is a long-lived crop for fertile soil with good moisture and drainage. Its broad leaves need a dedicated patch.
Where it fits Allow for a mature clump about 1.5 m across or more, outside the smaller herbs. Harvest stalks only; rhubarb leaves are poisonous.
Rumex acetosa
Perennial sorrel leaves
Planting area: Perennial kitchen patches
Common sorrel provides young leaves for the kitchen and grows in draining soil. Its deep roots and self-seeding need management.
Where it fits Use a sunny, clearly marked patch where seedlings can be removed and roots will not interfere with young woody plants.
Melissa officinalis
Lemon-scented culinary leaves
Planting area: Perennial kitchen patches
Lemon balm grows in sun or partial shade and gives aromatic leaves, but can spread and seed freely.
Where it fits Keep it in a large drained container beside the path. Remove spent flowers before seed forms if seedlings are unwanted.
Fragaria vesca
Low fruiting layer
Planting area: Low harvest edging
Woodland strawberries grow in sun or light shade. Some forms produce runners, while others remain useful clumping edgers.
Where it fits Make a reachable patch along a path and keep runners outside tree establishment circles and neighbouring herb clumps.
Allium schoenoprasum
Chive leaves and flowers
Planting area: Low harvest edging
Chives provide culinary leaves and flowers attractive to bees, in sun or partial shade with moisture-retentive, draining soil.
Where it fits Plant accessible clumps along the brighter picking edge. Leave some stems to flower while cutting others for the kitchen.
Draw mature apple, pear and hazel footprints first, usually towards the north of an open site. Check real summer shadows before assigning the lower layers.
Lay out the three berry bushes beyond dense tree shade. Between different species, start with the larger applicable bush spacing, then add a comfortable picking path.
Place the raspberry row in a separate sunny strip. Keep the kitchen patches and low edging on the accessible side of the shrubs, with rhubarb leaves clear of chives and strawberries.
Treat rootstock information as essential to any compact design. Increase the area or reduce the tree selection if the mature crowns will close all the sunny growing space.
Map summer sunlight, winter drainage, water access and soil pH. Confirm that every planting area can meet the relevant species' needs.
Choose locally suitable fruiting material and check pollination before ordering: apples need suitable apple pollen, pears need suitable pear pollen, and hazel benefits from compatible cross-pollination.
Plant woody structure during suitable dormant-season conditions. Keep grass and other plants out of a circle at least 1 m across around each young apple or pear, and install needed supports.
Establish the berry and raspberry areas, then plant the kitchen patches and edging in stages. Label everything and record cultivar, rootstock, planting date and available space.
Adjust saved quantities to your drawing: repeat low plants to form patches and include verified pollination partners where necessary.
These references support the growing conditions and plant roles described in this guide. The suggested layout is a design interpretation to adapt to your site.
Layered design and planning for shade as a temperate forest garden develops.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Apple site, rootstock, pollination and clear establishment areas.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Pear-specific pollination, frost exposure, rootstocks, mature spacing and establishment.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Corylus avellana growing conditions, mature size and compatible wind pollination.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Redcurrant light tolerance, bush spacing and pruning.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Blackcurrant soil, moisture, bush spacing and pruning.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Gooseberry light, moisture, spacing and seasonal care.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Raspberry soil and light needs, spacing, supports, suckers and fruiting-type-specific pruning.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Culinary rhubarb growing conditions, broad mature clumps, establishment and stalk-only harvest.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Common sorrel's culinary young leaves, sunny draining site, self-seeding and persistent roots.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Light tolerance, culinary leaves, container culture and spread control.
Reviewed 2026-09-06The alpine strawberry section covers Fragaria vesca, light tolerance and variable runner production.
Reviewed 2026-09-06Chive growing conditions, leaf harvesting and flowers for bees.
Reviewed 2026-09-06