The Rural Voice, 2001-07, Page 34.11 In
Gardening
Planning my woodland garden
By Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
The year 2001 will be the year of
the woodland garden in our yard.
After years of planting trees and
shrubs and drought -tolerant plants.
we have had to look at the yard with
new eyes. Those little two -foot
spruce are now ten feet high and the
birch whips have matured to the
paper white stage.
I have fought with my husband
long and hard over trimming trees
and shrubs. Walk around them if they
slap you in the face I tell him:
live and let live. I want the lushness
of a forest around the house. The
protection of strong brown limbs
sheltering our home from whistling
bitter winter winds and leafy
canopies in the summer to shade us
from the sun.
This year I looked around and our
sun -loving garden was'faltering.
Showy white scented iris barely made
an appearance with leaves and there
were no blooms to beckon one into
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30 THE RURAL VOICE
the garden. Yarrows were getting far
too leggy and when I suddenly came
across a straggly Eryngium. Sea
Holly. I knew some moving had to be
done.
With the new garden across the
sunny south of the house there was a
flurry of moving sun lovers to new
quarters. They are all doing quite
well. The sedums are spreading and
the handsome
rubeckias are
promising a
fine show of
colour for
August.
We looked
at what was
left in the old
swath of
garden around .. '
the east
around the patio.
My first reaction after the cutting
activity was to remark on what an
open mess we had made but upon
quieter reelection I saw the wonderful
opportunity to start a woodland
garden. The first step was to take a
long walk in our bush. I looked at the
soil and took note of the light and
trotted back to the garden. To make
this woodland area work 1
would need to amend the
soil with some peat moss.
leaf mold and compost.
Remember that trees can
be heavy feeders so a
good load of composted
leaves, or old manure
would be in order. Thanks
to the generosity of my
wonderful neighbours I
have access to a pile of
old manure.
Once the soil is amended we can
start moving in some wild ginger,
May -apple, bloodroot, hepatica and
some small ferns. Many of these have
finished blooming and can be moved
with a generous amount of soil left
around their roots. We are fortunate
to have a lot of these plants available
for careful moving. Some of the
larger nurseries offer an assortment
of woodland plants like jack -in -the
pulpits and trilliums but you can also
look at shade loving perennials like
cranesbill, pulmonaria and hostas.
New gardens are not always plain
palettes. There are those who come to
mature yards and throw up their
hands over the dense shade. Take a
second look around you. Trees are
essential to our survival but many
enjoy a bit of careful pruning to keep
them healthy and with that comes
new opportunities to try out some
native plants that flourish in our
woodlands. Check out the larger
nurseries for ideas.
Meanwhile I am off to dig out
some more compost for my new
woodland glade.0
side of the house. The light had been
steadily changing over the years
with the growth of the trees. The
primroses were flourishing and the
lady's mantle that had struggled for
years was now a broad cloud of
shimmering lime green along the
front of the border. Even the wee,
speckled pulmonaria, lungwort, that
struggled through each hot day in
past summers had been getting
steadily stronger and more lush with
the reduced sun.
But the trees and shrubs needed
attention. I surprised my partner by
trimming the trees with broken lower
limbs and cutting out branches that
were rubbing each other and cutting
back a few shrubs that were so
crowded they were killing off
sections of each other in the
competition for light. A twenty -year-
old Mountbatton juniper (skyrocket
variety) was given a new "hair" cut.
Old limbs from the lower quarter
were cleared away which opened up
an area the size of a small car — well
okay, half a car. The lower limbs on
the May tree and ash which had
been hanging far too low were
trimmed back. Now we have a
canopy with a wonderful dappled
area perfect for a woodland garden.
There is more air circulating and
filtered light allowed into the area
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger and her
husband raise two children at their
home near Auburn. She is a skilled
cook and gardener.