Bees are especially attracted to large areas of specific species of blooms, so plant as much as you can! When bees find these “flower shops” in your garden, they return to the hive, doing their sweet little bee dance to direct their sisters to the luscious find.

Our global plant list includes plants that are easy to find for your region. The ones marked medicinal provide medicine for people, but also for bees. They store this potent pollen in a medicine cabinet for when they get sick. Bees are an amazing super-organism!

Our plant list also shows what layer of a food forest it lives and its role or functions, like fertilizing, protecting soil, or plant dyes.

When you create a food forest that uses plants in a variety of ways, that’s called stacking functions. It’s a core

permaculture principle we teach in our Food Forest Course. Stacking functions makes the garden grow itself, giving you more time to chill and enjoy your space and more yield.

This guide will help you create plant guilds in a food forest too. A plant guild combines three or more plants to mirror the qualities of an ecosystem. You can produce food, build healthy soil, and provide forage for pollinators all at the same time!