Zone 2 Edible Food Forest Full Plant List (Sorted By Layer)

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Plant options for zone 2 Canada feel highly limited which is far from the truth; they are simply different! You can grow a whole 7-layer edible and medicinal food forest, and during those cold winters, save plenty of aromatic herbs for tea.

A zone 2 forest garden should have a mix of protective, perhaps non-edible plants, and edible plants. The purpose of protective plants (which may or may not happen to be edible) is to create a growable environment for your desired edible plants!

A planned windbreak or shelterbelt will allow for healthier plants which could mean more fruit for fresh eating, jams, and jellies.

See: How To Grow a Tree in a Windy Area (Everything You Can Do)

In this article, I provide an extensive list of plants you can grow for each layer in your food forest with varieties that grow best in zone 2. I selected a mixture of the most useful, medicinal, palatable, and protective species so you can diversify all in one place.

Canopy layer: zone 2 edible trees and nut trees

After you’ve prepared your ground you’ll start with planting the canopy layer and windshield, also known as a shelter belt.

By planting the canopy layer first, you’ll allow these trees to grow with a first head start.

The canopy layer is important for providing protection for your precious fruiting trees, supplying wildlife with a place to habitat safely, and adding biomass to your forest garden!

Biomass will play an essential role in replenishing needed nutrients and minerals in your soil. Most of your canopy layer will consist of deciduous trees that will drop leaves every year, adding life to your soil.

Over time, you’ll propagate the trees from your canopy layer to start new ones to replace older ones that you may decide to cut down for all sorts of uses like firewood or adding more biomass to the ground!

Trees such as birches will also one day be consumed by medicinal fungi. Chaga is a medicine that grows on birches and later causes death to the birch trees. You’ll want to keep this in mind so you’re sure to replenish your canopy layer in a couple decades’ time before their lifecycle expires.

Name	Common name	Primary Purpose – Wildlife habitat & leaf mulch
Alnus incana	Grey Alder	Nitrogen fixation, edible uses, more info
Betula pendula laciniata	Cutleaf Weeping Birch	Birds, beauty, chaga (medicinal fungi), polypores, useful bark, edible sap, edible inner bark, tinder
Betula papyrifera	Paper Birch	Birds, beauty, chaga (medicinal fungi), polypores, useful bark, edible sap, edible inner bark, tinder
Celtis occidentalis var. “delta”	Delta Hackberry	Edible, wood source, habitat, more info
Fraxinus nigra	Fallgold Black Ash	Habitat, shelter belt: 3rd row in, great hardwood, more info
Fraxinus pennsylvanica	Green Ash	Hardy to climatic extremes, great hardwood, shelter belt: 3rd row in
Fraxinus americana	White Ash	Habitat, great hardwood, shelter belt: 3rd row in, medicinal uses: more info
Sorbus americana	American Mountain Ash	Shelterbelt: 3rd row in, Edible fruit: more info
Populus balsamifera	Balsam Poplar	shelter belt: 3rd row in, Medicinal uses: more info
Populus tremuloides	Aspen	More info
Salix	Willow, certain varieties	Beauty, shelterbelt: 2nd row in
Tilia americana	American Linden	Fragrant flowers, edible leaves, and flowers, pollinator
Ulmus americana	Elm	Medicinal: more info
Larix siberica	Siberian Larch	Edible components: fresh needles for tea and bark, confirm with your own research.
Pinus koraiensis	Korean Pine	Edible pistachio-sized pine nuts, shelter belt: 4th or 5th row in, where to buy
Pinus cembra sibrica	Siberian Pine	Edible nuts
Picea x	Spruce	year-round edible needles, shelter belt: 4th or 5th row in
Thuja occidentalis	Eastern white cedar	Edible inner bark, shelter belt

Understory layer: zone 2 edible fruit trees

You can grow several varieties of apple trees in zone 2!

Once your pioneers are in place, you’ll have a suitable environment for your understory layer in a year’s time. If your climate is particularly harsh, you might want to allow your canopy and shelterbelt to establish for a couple of years before planting your precious fruits.

If you can protect your understory layer from wind and deer, by all means, plant them at the same time as your canopy.

For a sustainable forest garden, you’ll want to include a mix of nitrogen fixers, edible fruits, edible nuts, and more shelterbelt plants.

If you plant 1 nitrogen fixer each, in a couple of years you’ll be able to propagate them into many more. I recommend propagating them to reap the reward of nitrogen fixers they will have to be killed. The longer you allow their root systems to establish, the more underground biomass they will provide upon death. So you’ll likely be waiting 10-20 years before chopping them down. This gives you plenty of time to create and establish new ones from your existing plants.

Nut trees typically take at least 10, sometimes 20 years before you’ll get food! Planting nuts as soon as possible gives you more time to enjoy their harvest.

Having a mix of heights in your shelterbelt from trees, to shrubs, to herbaceous plants; you’ll protect your forest garden from wind and chills at all heights.

Name	Common name	Primary Purpose – Edible fruit and flowers
Caragana arborescens	Siberian pea shrub/tree	Edible, medicinal, outside edge shelter belt, dyes, fibers, nitrogen fixation, more info
Malus x	Crabapple	Edible fruit, flowers
Prunus maackii	Cherry	Edible fruit, flowers
Prunus virginiana	Chokecherry	Habitat, somewhat edible, medicinal uses: more info
Prunus x	Plum	Edible fruit, flowers, acme plum, gold plum, many more plum options
Sorbus aucuparia	Mountain Ash	Edible but bitter, bird food, medicinal: more info
Corylus cornuta	Beaked hazelnut	Edible nuts, available to buy
Pinus koraiensis	Korean Pine	Where to buy
Syringa	Lilac	Outside edge shelter belt, edible flowers, fragrance
Syringa vulgaris	Villosa Lilac	Outside edge shelter belt, edible flowers, fragrance
Malus sp. 9-22 End	End Apple Tree	Edible fruit, where to buy
Malus sp. Fall Red	Fall red apple tree	Edible fruit, where to buy, many more apple options
Pyrus ussuriensis	Siberian pear tree	Edible fruit, available to buy
Viburnum lentago	Nannyberry, Sheepberry	Edible fruit, habitat
Oleaster	Russian olive	Nitrogen fixer, edible fruit
Rhus glabra	Smooth sumac	Edible zesty flavor, medicinal, fast-growing wood source
Crataegus calpodendron	Pear Hawthorn	Edible fruit
Asimina triloba	PawPaw (Taylor)	Large edible fruit

Shrub layer: zone 2 edible fruiting shrubs

There are more edible plants for zone 2 growing than expected!

The shrub layer is a wonderful opportunity for incorporating deer-resistant walls. Done well, it can encourage them to stay outside of your forest garden. For this purpose, you’d be looking to select thorny shrubs and rough evergreens such as junipers.

Your wall layout would ideally consist of several rows in the direction they’re most likely to come from.

Just like a shelterbelt. Except a shelterbelt is consisted of rows to block the direction of where the wind comes from.

For spacing, treat your shrubs similar to trees, except shrubs will take up more bushy space on your level when mature. You’ll be able to walk under most of your understory trees and canopy trees. Trees still require adequate spacing so their canopies don’t crow too closely, but they can be allowed to touch. For shrubs; you don’t want their “canopies” touching at all, otherwise, you couldn’t walk between them! So spacing can be more considerable for this layer.

Name	Common name	Primary Purpose
Rubus (wild species)	Wild Blackberry	Edible fruit, deer resistant
Rubus idaeus	Boyne raspberries	Edible fruit, deer resistant
Rubus arcticus	Arctic Raspberries	Edible fruit, deer resistant
Amelanchier spp.	Wild serviceberry	Edible fruit
Viburnum trilobum	Highbush cranberry	Edible fruit, birds
Viburnum cassinoides	Withe Rod	Edible fruit
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi	Bearberry	Edible fruit, medicinal leaves
Vaccinium vitis-idaea	Lingonberry	Edible fruit
Ribes uva-crispa	Gooseberry	Edible fruit
Lycium barbarum	Goji berry	Edible fruit
Vaccinium angustifolium	Low bush blueberry	Edible fruit, more info
Myrica pensylvanica	Northern Bayberry	Edible fruit, more info
Prunus fruticosa	Mongolian cherry	Edible fruit, shelterbelt, more info
Shepherdia argentea	Silver buffaloberry	Edible fruit, deer resistant, nitrogen fixer
Juniperus communis	Juniper	Evergreen, edible fruit (but not always), shelterbelt, deer resistant, more info
Andromeda polifolia	Bog Rosemaries	Medicinal
Elaeagnus commutata	Silverberry	Edible, nitrogen fixer
Prunus pumila	Sand cherry	Edible
Amelanchier alnifolia	Saskatoon berry (northline)	Edible
Rhododendron canadense	Rhodora	Poisonous, pollinators
Cornus sericea	Redosier Dogwood	Medicinal uses, crafts
Empetrum nigrum	Crow berry	Edible fruit, evergreen
Lonicera caerulea (var. emphyllocalyx or kamtschatica)	Haskapps	Edible fruit
Dasiphora fruticosa	Shrubby Cinqfoil	Leaves for tea, flowers
Ledum palustre L	Labrador tea	Great for tea, medicinal
Amorpha canescens	Leadplant	Tea, flowers, shelter belt, nitrogen fixer, more info
Forsythia ovata	Norther gold forsythia	Flowers, edible uses
Salix discolor	Pussy willow	Crafts, wildlife food, medicinal
Spiraea trilobata	Three-Lobed Spirea	Pollinator
Prunus tenella	Russian almond	Shelter belt, wildlife, dyes, medicinal
Hippophae rhamnoides	Sea-buckthorn	Nitrogen fixer, deer resistant, edible nutritious berries, usually zone 3; but if used in your 4th or 5th row of shelter belt or deer wall it may fair well.
Chaenomeles speciosa	Northern Bayberry	Edible fruit, bay leaf substitute
Celtis occidentalis var. “delta”	Delta Hackberry	Edible nutrient-dense fruit

Herbaceous layer: zone 2 edible herbs and flowers

Herbs and flowers can be companion-planted around the bases of trees and planted in between distant shrubs.

The herbaceous layer will play a large role in balancing pest control. There are a variety of plants that can be used for different purposes. Fragrant herbs are good scent confusers and flowering plants provide food for predators.

Large leafy plants (like rhubarb) make great mulch.

A lot of this layer is easy to harvest for edible and medicinal purposes too!

The plants you put in today will be less permanent than the previous layers. Herbs and flowers will change the most over time as their life spans are shorter than trees and shrubs. Because of this, it will be important that you ensure your plants reseed or you divide and propagate them. Most plants will reproduce themselves successfully.

Name	Common name	Primary Purpose
Rubus chamaemorus	Cloudberries	Edible raspberry-like fruit
Cardinal flower	Red lobelia	Flowers, pollinators
Myrica gale	Sweetgale	Medicinal
Allium schoenoprasum	Chives	Edible, pollinators
Rheum rhabarbarum	Rhubarb	Edible, deer resistant, great for fruit trees, nutrient accumulator, great mulch sub for comfrey
Aquilegia canadensis	Eastern Red Columbine	Flowers
Chenopodium capitatum	Strawberry spinach	Reseeds
Viola sororia	Wild violets	Flowers, edible
Eryngium alpinum	Alpine Sea Holly	Medicinal, beauty
Primula denticulata	Drumstick Primula	Edible, flowers
Sarracenia Purpurea	Pitcher plant (carnivorous)	more info
saxifraga oppositofolia	Mountain saxifrage	Edible, pollinators
saxifraga paniculata	lifelong saxifrage	Edible
Viola blanda	Sweet white violet	Edible, flowers
Abelmoschus esculentus	Okra	Annual, edible
Caltha palustris	Marsh marigold	Edible
Hylotelephium telephium	Orpine	Medicinal, flowers
Monarda fistulosa	Wild bergamot	Pollinators, edible flowers for tea, reseeds
Helenium	Sneezeweed	Medicinal, pollinators
Hemerocallis	Day lily	Edible, and delicious! Tolerates zone 3, but in a microclimate, you could likely get away with some hardy cultivars.
Hosta	Hosta	Edible shoots, tolerates zone 3, but in a microclimate, you could likely get away with some hardy cultivars.
Matricaria chamomilla	Chamomile	Reseeds, tea
Rhodiola rosea	Roseroot	Edible
Hablitzia tamnoides	Caucasian Mountain Spinach	Edible leaf, mulch for winter protection
Borago officinalis	Borage	Annual, flowers, tea, reseeds
Gymnocarpium dryopteris	Northern oak fern	Beauty, wildlife attractor
Tagetes patula	French Marigold	Flowers, tea

Root layer: zone 2 edible roots

Tubers have a beneficial life cycle of their own. Just because you grow them; doesn’t mean you have to worry about eating them!

Some you’ll totally want to grow for eating, others perhaps for flowers. The bonus of leaving tubers alone is that they’ll eventually rot in the ground. This provides lots of food for soil life and for worms to thrive!

Not everything must be a nitrogen fixer to be good for the soil; simply biomass is beneficial.

Name	Common name	Primary Purpose
Calla palustris	Water Arum	Can be hardy to zone 2, edible more info
Asarum hartwegii	Sierra Wild Winger	Edible root
Helianthus tuberosus	Sunchokes	Edible roots, flowers, shelterbelt, tolerates zone 3; but you can either heavily mulch tubers before extreme cold sets in or dig them up and replant. Prolific food source
Pastinaca sativa	Parsnip	Edible root
Leuzea carthamoides (Syn. Rhaponticum carthamoides)	Marol Root	Medicinal root, flowers
Cichorium intybus	Chicory	Edible root
Menyanthes trifoliata	Bogbean	Medicinal root

Vining layer: zone 2 edible vines

Vines can provide a great deal of beauty, attract birds, and pollinators, and provide you with fruit!

We are most excited for our hardy kiwis to set fruit in the years to come. Patiently waiting, we are…

Vines can be planted by physical structures for support such as fences or log posts. Or, you can plant vines on your pioneer trees and nitrogen-fixing trees a couple of years after they’ve been able to grow and establish.

Name	Common name	Primary Purpose
Vitus sp. Valiant	Valiant grapevine	Edible fruit and leaves, available to buy
Actinidia arguta	Cultivars: Chung Bai, Aromatnaya, Krupnopladnay, Pavlovskaya, Sentyabraskaya, Arctic Beauty and Annikki	Edible fruit, certain cultivars can grow in zones 2!
Celastrus	Bittersweet	Beauty, bird food, poisonous
Clematis	Clematis – Hardy Varieties	Beauty
Lonicera	Honeysuckle	Beauty, pollinators, find/confirm edible varieties
Cucurbita argyrosperma	Cushaw Pumpkin	Annual, save seeds
Linnaea borealis	Linnaea borealis	Edible leaves
Oxyria digyna	Mountain sorrel	Edible leaves

Ground cover layer: zone 2 edible ground covers

Now that you have all your layers planted the way you want, lastly, you’ll want to diversify your ground covers!

Add deer-resistant ground covers on your deer wall, even in place of paths. You may want to do this step sooner than later since your forest garden needs protection from deer especially while it’s young.

Keep the ground cover for your pathways something that can tolerate traffic. For the rest, consider adding edible foods, flowers, and fragrant low-growers.

Name	Common name	Primary Purpose
Paxistima canbyi	Cliff Green Pachistima	Dense green
Carex eburnea	Bristleleaf sedge	deer resistant
Phlox subulata	Creeping or moss phlox	Flowers
Fragaria ×	Strawberry (toklat variety)	Edible
Saponaria ocymoides	Rock soapwort	Deer resistant
Nasturtium officinale	Watercress	Edible
Coriandrum sativum	Coriander	Reseeds, edible, fragrant
Cornus canadensis	Bunchberry/creeping dogwood	Edible berries

After a few years of establishing your forest garden, a microclimate will be created. The more mature and protective your forest garden becomes, the better chance you’ll have of getting away with some zone 3 edible perennials!

Make your list, draw it out, and order the plants

All you’ve got left to do now is to take action!

We hope this helps you design your very own super-cold-climate forest garden with ease!

Did we miss any prized arctic plants in any of the lists? There is most likely something to add.

If you’re growing something in zone 2 that isn’t here; leave a comment to let us know.

This article was originally published on foodforestliving.com. If it is now published on any other site, it was done without permission from the copyright owner.

No liability exists against Food Forest Living or any member of Food Forest Living, nor can they be held responsible for any allergy, illness, or injurious effect that any person or animal may suffer as a result of the information in this catalog or through using any of the plants mentioned by Food Forest Living. Do your own research and due diligence when deciding to consume any edible plants.