Plants are not birds and you analogy is not appropriate not relevant.


Frank Martin wrote in message
...
She may have meant seagulls where weaker younger and older birds can
scavange off the leavings of stronger ones.
Flocks of starlings and the like may act as a single organisn where
sharp-eyed individuals find the food, and all eat it.

"Beverly Erlebacher" wrote in message
. ..
In article ,
Frank Martin wrote:
Are some plants better planted in a group of their fellows than just
singly?
My grandmother says some plants are like flocks of birds and do better
in
a
group. Does anyone know about this?

Some plants do better if not planted in isolation because a group may
e.g.
shade each others roots or provide a cooler or more humid microclimate
under a canopy of leaves of adjacent plants. While this wouldn't
require
the plants to be all of the same species, if they are the same,
competition
will be more evenly spread out so the "weed-choked" appearance will be
minimized.

As an example, a friend tells me she can't grow tomatoes in the extreme
summer heat in the central valley of California - she buys them from the
farmer's market. So how do the farmers manage? The air under the
canopy
in a large field of tomatoes gets cool enough at night that pollination
can occur. A few plants in a garden don't have that advantage, and
fruit
never sets.

That said, your grandmother may be on to something. The field of
chemical
communication between plants is a new one, and there may be some
surprising
interactions. Which species has she observed to do better in groups?