Seven-Layer Planting Planner

A working template for turning the layer model from Design: The Layers & Guilds into an actual plant list for your site. Fill in one row per layer per guild — most sites will have more than one guild, so copy this table as many times as you need.

Guild # — location on site map: ______

(Not every guild needs every layer filled — a small guild with three or four layers is still a real guild. Leave rows blank rather than forcing a species into a layer that doesn't fit the space.)

Before you plant, check

• Does at least one plant in this guild fix nitrogen or accumulate nutrients for the others? If not, is that intentional?
• Have you checked mature size against actual spacing on your site map — not current nursery-pot size?
• Is anything in this guild an invasive species on your island, or does the site need clearing first? (See Plant Selection for the named invasives to clear before planting in Hawaiʻi.)
• Does the food-producing plant in this guild match what you actually want to harvest — for your own kitchen, a farmers market stand, or a restaurant relationship?

Reference: Hawaiʻi wet-tropical starter species by layer

See the Hawaiʻi Species Starter List for a fuller reference list to pull from when filling in the table above.