Read this article to view photographs of comfrey planted as a living mulch around the base of eight year old fruit trees, in the forest garden area of Leaf Street community garden. The comfrey is successfully out-competing ground elder, and goose grass, as well as providing multiple other benefits as a mulch.

The comfrey in the following photographs has been planted as a green / living mulch, in rings, around the base of a number of fruit trees on Leaf Street. This is a low input system that offers the following multiple benefits:

1. As the comfey grows during the spring and summer, it is easily cut, using shears or a sickle, and the cuttings are placed around the trunk of the tree to form a thick, protective mulch. The comfrey can be cut two or three times during each growing season. Severe cutting does not harm the plant, as it stores a lot of energy in its roots.

2. The mulch provides multiple benefits to the fruit trees, including retention of ground water, and suppression of encroaching weeds, including ground elder and goose grass, for example.

3. Comfrey plants are known as 'dynamic accumulators', because they accumulate minerals and nutrients from the sub soil. When the leaves are cut and placed around the base of the trees as a mulch, the minerals are made available to the tree roots, as they rot down and percolate into the soil.

4. The thick roots of the comfrey form a dense barrier that prevents the spread of grasses and weeds around the base of the tree, which would otherwise spread, and compete with the fruit trees for scarce supplies of nutrients. In addition the thick foliage of the comfrey has a similar effect of suppressing weeds and grasses above ground.

The following photograph shows comfrey out-competing ground elder under an apple tree on Leaf Street (click photo for enlargement):

This next image shows some more comfrey successfully out-competing goose grass, under another near by fruit tree:

The third image shows the comfrey, having been freshly cut, and left in position around the base of the fruit tree, to act a s a mulch, retaining ground water, suppressing weeds, and slowly adding nutrients to the soil. The comfrey pant will live on, and push up new shoots, which can be cut again later in the year. Alternatively, the cuttings can be removed, and used to make a comfrey fertiliser for use elsewhere:

Thoughts on ground elder
The ground elder has been spreading invasively on Leaf Street for a number of years, and has thwarted the growth of more desirable species, including alpine strawberries. Two years ago local residents tried in vain to dig out the roots, but it has come back stronger than ever.

The following photograph was taken this year at Bangor Forest Garden, and shows lemon balm growing successfully out of, and out-competing the ground elder, underneath a fruit tree:

Lemon balm is an aromatic herb that was strongly recommended by the forest gardening pioneer Robert Hart in his books. The herb is an excellent companion plant for fruit trees, forms good ground cover, and can be used in fresh salads or herbal teas. It would be really excellent to see lots of lemon balm, and similar aromatic herbs planted as an understory, around the fruit trees on Leaf Street, in order to combat the spreading ground elder in a productive and energy efficient way.

Alternatively, the ground elder is not that bad. It is in fact an edible species, although it is a bit bitter. If all residents of Leaf Street made a point of harvesting a little bit of ground elder every week, as a salad leaf, then its invasive growth would be curtailed.

At the very least, the ground elder forms a good ground cover plant, and is healthy for the soil, and is in my mind a lot better than bare earth - which is land in its poorest state of health.

NOTE ABOUT MULCHING AROUND TREES: In order to use the comfrey cuttings to mulch properly, the plant should be cut, then placed in a torus pattern (i.e. like a donut) around the base of the tree's trunk, with a gap between the trunk, and the mulch material. It is important to do this in order to enable air to circulate around the trunk of the tree. Otherwise, as the mulch material rots down, and becomes moist, it can cause the base of the tree's trunk to become rotten, which could effectively destroy the tree.