Seven Steps to Making a Woodland Garden

When we moved here in 1985, there was a wild area in a little valley on the other side of the drive. It was grown over with tangles of vines as thick as my wrist and weeds that could swallow a man whole. Bad boys in the neighborhood sometimes would go down there to read girly magazines and smoke cigarettes. They once caught the woods on fire, and Helena's fire department had to come put out the blaze. 

Each year Lou and I would attempt to tame the rampant overgrowth, and I came to understand how my state acquired its name. Alabama comes from an old Choctaw Indian word meaning "I clear the thicket." 

Indeed.

One year I decided to turn the area into a garden. It contained some beautiful dogwood, oak, and pine trees, but part of it was sunny and I didn't deliberately decide to create a woodland garden. For years I called it my weed garden, because at first most of the plants could be classified as that. But a lot of them bloomed, so I welcomed them into my scheme. Over time the space took on its own character and told me what to do with it.

It was an enormous project, but each step was an improvement. Here is what I did, gradually as energy and budget allowed:

1. I cut meandering paths through the weeds and around the trees with a string trimmer. I kept the paths cut to the ground on a regular schedule, and I added rocks along the edge of parts of the paths to better define them.

2. Where necessary, I limbed up trees overhanging the paths so I could walk easily under them.

3. I smothered large areas of obnoxious weeds. I used brown grocery sacks, newspaper, and cut-up cardboard boxes. I put these on top of the weeds, then covered them with a thick mulch of pine straw. This immediately made the space look better and eventually improved the soil. I also continued to hand pull weeds and spray stuff like poison oak with round-up.

4. I cut holes through the pine straw mulch and began planting. On the hillside I planted ground covers, including mondo grass, spreading cotoneaster, junipers, and a number of shrubs and trees. I incorporated preexisting plants such as native yaupon holly, mahonia and nandina. I continued to add new plants each spring and fall, among which are:

hosta, ferns, and heuchera

Japanese maple

fothergilla

viburnum

azalea

yew

and many more!

5. I discovered that moss grew naturally in the paths I had cut, so I began encouraging its growth by sprigging pieces of it throughout the paths and by keeping fallen leaves raked away. Eventually the moss grew thick enough that I no longer had cut the paths with a string trimer. Hooray! Now I just hand pull weeds from time to time. As more moss fills in, I am having to do even this less often.

6. I added some manmade focal points with a rabbit at the entrance and a little bench for sitting to enjoy it all. I hung some wind chimes and a birdhouse.

7. One day I blinked and discovered that it had become a shady, even romantic retreat, and I began to officially call it my woodland garden.

Here are some recent images taken in the woodland garden:

And a few featured plants:Clockwise from top left: heuchera 'tiramisu'; fothergilla gardenii; autumn fern; korean spice viburnum

May you all take time to walk in a woodland, to listen to birds and to feel a breeze; may you fill your heart in the embrace of nature.  Deborah

You can see more images taken recently of the woodland garden in my last post, A Crime Scene on a Beautiful Day.

A Crime Scene on a Beautiful Day

Recently, Garden, the cat who does not belong to me, and I were walking near the lady garden when we came across a crime scene. 

That's gross! 

Garden couldn't stand it and covered her eyes.

Warning: the following image is graphic, so if you have a weak stomach, you better not look, either.The bloody guts, upon investigation, was actually red and white sap coming from a stump. Lou had cut down a tree. I have never seen a bleeding tree before, but I think this one qualifies!

Garden and I went looking for more pleasant things, and we saw this vignette in the lady garden:

We saw summer snowflakes, leucojum aestivan:

And many other lovely flowers:

Here's my watering can:

In the front garden we admired the weeping cherry tree:

We saw the Jane magnolia overlooking the woodland garden:

Then we entered the woodlands and got another perspective on the Jane magnolia:

Morning light shown across some spirea shrubs:

Gauzy spiderwebs hung like hammocks among the branches:

We stopped to look at some variegated ivy:

A treat for the eyes, blooming redbud trees were sweet as puffs of cotton candy:

Finally, on our way out of the woodlands, Garden stopped to speak to the rabbit:

We enjoyed our walk. The air was refreshing and the sights were beautiful, except for the crime scene. It was a day too fine for murder, and I told Lou he shouldn't have cut down that tree. A tree that bleeds will probably come back to haunt you.

Happy Spring!