Want bigger, sweeter apples and a healthier tree with less effort? It all starts with the right planting partners. Some plants are apple tree superheroes—boosting pollination, repelling pests, and improving soil. Others? Total troublemakers that can stunt growth or invite disease.
In this guide, you’ll find 12 powerful companion plants your apple tree will love—and 4 you should absolutely avoid.
1. Aromatic Garlic Bulbs
Garlic’s strong scent acts like a natural pest repellent for your apple trees. When planted around the base, it helps keep away common apple pests like aphids and apple maggot flies. The sulfur compounds in garlic also help prevent fungal diseases that often plague apple trees.
For best results, plant garlic cloves in fall about 3-4 feet from the tree trunk. As a bonus, you’ll harvest your own garlic in summer while your apple trees continue to benefit from the residual effects in the soil.
2. Vibrant Marigolds
Marigolds bring a splash of orange and yellow while working hard to protect your apple trees. Their roots release chemicals that deter nematodes and other soil pests that might damage young apple tree roots.
Beyond pest control, marigolds attract beneficial insects like ladybugs and hoverflies that feast on aphids. Plant them in a colorful ring around your apple trees, keeping about 2 feet of space from the trunk. Many gardeners swear by French marigold varieties for the strongest pest-repelling properties.
3. Nitrogen-Rich Clover
Clover serves as a living mulch beneath apple trees, covering the ground with lush green growth. As a nitrogen-fixing plant, clover pulls nitrogen from the air and transfers it to the soil where apple trees can use this essential nutrient.
The dense mat of clover also prevents weeds from taking hold and competing with your apple trees. White clover stays relatively short and won’t interfere with harvesting. An added advantage: clover flowers attract pollinators that help with apple blossom fertilization, potentially increasing your fruit yield.
4. Bee-Friendly Lavender
Lavender’s purple spikes don’t just look pretty near apple trees—they’re pollinator magnets! Bees can’t resist the fragrant flowers and will stick around to pollinate your apple blossoms too. The strong scent of lavender confuses and deters codling moths, which are major apple pests.
Plant lavender bushes around the drip line of your apple tree where they’ll get plenty of sun. Harvest lavender sprigs to use at home while your apple trees benefit from this aromatic companion all season long.
5. Pest-Repelling Nasturtiums
Nasturtiums act as a sacrificial plant, attracting aphids away from your precious apple trees. Their bright flowers in shades of orange, yellow, and red make them an attractive trap crop that pests prefer over your apples.
Beyond aphid control, nasturtiums deter woolly apple aphids and certain beetles. Their sprawling growth habit makes them perfect for planting around the base of apple trees. Every part of nasturtiums is edible, so you can add the peppery leaves and flowers to salads while they protect your apple harvest.
6. Sweet-Smelling Chamomile
Chamomile’s daisy-like flowers and feathery foliage bring more than just beauty to your apple orchard. This herb increases the essential oil content in nearby plants, which can improve the flavor of your apples. Known as a “plant doctor,” chamomile helps prevent bacterial and fungal diseases in apple trees.
The flowers attract beneficial insects like hoverflies and parasitic wasps that prey on apple pests. German chamomile works best as an annual companion, while Roman chamomile returns year after year as a perennial ground cover.
7. Pollinator-Attracting Borage
Borage’s star-shaped blue flowers are like bee magnets in your garden. These pollinator attractors help ensure your apple blossoms get thoroughly pollinated, leading to better fruit set and bigger harvests. The cucumber-flavored leaves of borage add minerals to the soil as they decompose.
This herb also deters tomato hornworms and cabbage worms that might otherwise damage young apple shoots. Borage self-seeds readily, so plant it once and enjoy years of blue-flowered companions for your apple trees.
8. Hardy Comfrey Plants
Comfrey works like a natural nutrient pump for apple trees. Its deep taproots pull nutrients from far below the soil surface and bring them up where apple trees can access them. The large leaves make excellent mulch when cut and placed around the tree base.
As they break down, they release potassium and other minerals that help apple trees produce sweeter fruit. Russian comfrey (Bocking 14) is the preferred variety for orchards since it doesn’t spread aggressively by seed like common comfrey.
9. Daffodil Bulb Barriers
Daffodils create a natural defense system for your apple trees against burrowing rodents. Mice, voles, and other small animals avoid the toxic bulbs, creating a protective ring around your tree’s roots. Spring blooming daffodils also add cheerful color to your orchard before the apple trees leaf out.
Their early flowers provide nectar for pollinators just waking up from winter. Plant daffodil bulbs in fall in a circle around your apple trees, about 3-4 feet from the trunk where they won’t interfere with root growth.
10. Yarrow’s Beneficial Habitat
Yarrow’s flat-topped flower clusters serve as landing pads for beneficial insects like predatory wasps and lacewings. These helpful bugs hunt down pests that would otherwise damage your apple trees. The deep roots of yarrow help break up compacted soil, allowing more water and oxygen to reach apple tree roots.
Yarrow also accumulates phosphorus, copper, and potassium from deep in the soil. Native yarrow varieties with white flowers attract the widest range of beneficial insects compared to the colorful cultivated types.
11. Chive Clusters
Chives bring double benefits with their pest-repelling properties and pretty purple blooms. The mild onion scent confuses pests looking for apple trees while deterring apple scab disease. Unlike larger alliums, chives won’t compete significantly with your apple tree’s roots.
Their clumping growth habit makes them easy to control around the base of trees. Harvest chives regularly for kitchen use, but leave some flower heads to attract pollinators and beneficial insects to your apple growing area.
12. Phacelia’s Pollinator Paradise
Phacelia (also called bee’s friend) produces fern-like foliage topped with curling purple-blue flower spikes that bees absolutely adore. A single plant can attract hundreds of pollinators to your apple orchard. Beyond pollination benefits, phacelia improves soil structure when tilled under as a green manure.
Its quick growth suppresses weeds that would compete with young apple trees. Sow phacelia seeds in early spring for a pollinator feast during apple blossom time, then allow some plants to reseed for continuous benefits.
13. Avoid: Walnut Trees
Walnut trees spell trouble for apple trees due to a chemical called juglone that they release from their roots, bark, and leaves. This natural toxin prevents many plants, including apples, from growing properly. The effects can be devastating – stunted growth, yellowing leaves, and eventually death of your apple trees.
The toxic zone extends in a circle around walnut trees equal to their height. Even after removing a walnut tree, the soil remains toxic to apple trees for several years, so careful planning is essential.
14. Avoid: Grass Lawns
Ordinary lawn grass creates fierce competition for young apple trees. Grass roots form a dense mat that competes for water and nutrients, often winning against tree roots and stunting your apple tree’s growth.
The competition is especially harmful during the first five years after planting. Young trees surrounded by grass often show yellowing leaves and poor fruit production. Replace grass with mulch or beneficial companion plants in at least a 3-foot circle around each apple tree to eliminate this competitive relationship.
15. Avoid: Potatoes
Potatoes and apple trees share vulnerability to similar diseases, creating a risky partnership. Both are susceptible to blight diseases that can spread from one to the other when planted nearby. The fungal pathogen Phytophthora infestans can affect both plants, moving through soil or by airborne spores.
Signs include blackened leaves and stems on potatoes and similar symptoms on apple tree foliage. Keep at least 15-20 feet between potato patches and apple trees to minimize disease transmission risks.
16. Avoid: Bramble Berries
Bramble berries like raspberries and blackberries might seem like natural orchard companions, but they share problematic diseases with apple trees. Both are vulnerable to fire blight, a bacterial disease that can rapidly kill branches. Cedar apple rust is another shared disease that jumps between these plants. The similar soil and sunlight requirements mean they’ll compete for resources if planted too close together.
If you must grow both, keep brambles at least 100 feet from apple trees and monitor carefully for any signs of disease.