Woodland garden.

I've spent the morning planning the layout of my new garden. I've a long, quite thin (~4 foot x 14 foot) area which is pretty much in light shade for most of the day.

I plan on creating a raised bed with a woodland theme and am looking for inspiration and ideas, especially for what to plant. I've thought of the obvious bulbs and ferns but am stuck on plants that'll suit the look but provide summer long colour and provide a little height at the back to hid the wall.

I've already decided on some logs with wild fungus and mushrooms, a small pond and at a later stage I hope to use the leaves i'm collecting (and planning to shred) to provide a more natural ground cover.

If anyone is interested, i'll happily keep this thread going with pictures of my progress.

In the meantime, any help would be appreciated.

 

Hi Anthony - no real answers, but I am planning a woodland garden as well, so also need ideas. I have a triangular patch of ground that will get reaosnable sun during summer into which I was thinking of putting 5-7 silver birch trees and underplanting with spring/summer bulbs, ferns, foxgloves, hostas etc.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? esp re trees - what would be good small to medium tree for a woodland garden?

 

First of all there are lots of really good books on this kind of gardening. Gertrude Jekyll, The Woodland Garden, Jane Taylor Gardening in the Shade, Jack Elliott Woodland Garden. Marjorie Fish Gardening in the Shade, A,Paterson Plants for Shade,W.G. Schmidt Encyclopaedia of ShadePerennials to name but the ones I have. The Jane Taylor one is good to read too.
The thing is that if the garden is in shade all the year the plant choice is different from when the shade is seasonal. My shade garden has arisaemas, arums, meconopsis, wood anemone,hepaticas, forms of saxifaga fortunei as well as the usual spring bulbs and ferns.
Our woodland garden has snowdrops, winter aconites, arums and forms of celandine(very, very invasive) but in Summer when the trees are in leaf it is basically bare as the soil is in near darkness and extremely dry.
I hesitate to recommend trees for an Australian garden, are there no local ones suitable or do you wish to keep to a Northern hemisphere theme?

[ 30. October 2005, 08:30 AM: Message edited by: Palustris ]

 

Thanks for the plant and book list Palustris. Looking up the plants in Google provided links to some very useful web sites and I'm currently drawing up a short list. :D

 

My climate is very English save that my winters are much milder, which makes it all the easier. In 'older' areas of Australia, especially in hilly areas, early settlers planted out very English gardens bringing out all their fav plants from the home country. My house was established by English settlers, and it had an English garden planted into it ... in Australia, if you're serious about restoring a Georgian or Victorian house (and you aren't caught up in minimalist trendy) then you plant a very English style garden to complement that restoration - many of the older homes in Australia have stunning 'more English then the English' gardens. It doens't mean you don't have Australian plants (which typically flower in winter time), it just means that they complement the overall 'English' setting.

An Australian woodland garden would be a dry and barren place. Unless of course I went for a Tasmanian cool weather rainforest - I intend to use many of the hardy Australian rainforest ferns in the garden, but complemented with more 'English' style underplanting. The Australian rainforest trees are typically 300 feet tall, and about 60 feet diameter (if you've ever been to the Californian redwood forests then you'll have a good idea of what the Tasmanian rainforest looks like, save we have a much denser underplanting of ferns). I don't want those big trees in my garden.

PS I saw on one of your English gardening shows that most of the tree ferns sold in England are imported from Tasmania ... the trees are torn down for logging (don't get me started on the logging industry in Tasmania) and the underplantings of ferns exported to the English nurseries ).

[ 30. October 2005, 07:47 PM: Message edited by: ellengray ]

 

Ellen, small tree suggestions; Sorbus (Rowan and Whitebeam) Malus (Crab apples) Acers especially those described as having Snakebark, (but not Norway or Sycamore, very tall and vigorous), Amelanchier lamarkii. to begin with. I will look for more later.
By the way Hiller's Trees and Shrubs book is a good source. They define a small tree as being up to 30 feet tall.
I am not into conifers so cannot suggest any suitable ones.

 

Hollies Ilex aquifolium are a wonderfull underpalnting for large trees as they are extreemly shade tollerant. You need both male and female trees for the berries though and they can take up to 20 years to bear fruit. There are many different forms from the dark green classic prickly holly leaf to varigated and smooth leaved forms. They are also suitable for the smaller woodland garden or even hedges as they are slow growing and can be kept to a good shape.

Corkscrew hazel, Corylus avellana 'Contorta' as the name suggests provides very interesting twisted branches when the leaves have dropped in autumn and for a bit of spring colour you could add Flowering Quince Chaenomeles japonica As well as the common orange/red variety there are scarlet, pinks and white forms including doubles. Fruits are edible, make a good jelly or marmalade and also have a delightful perfume for potpori if they are sliced and dried.

If your soil is naturally acid you also have the whole world of Rhododendrons, Azaleas and magnolias to choose from.

Laburnam has beautifull golden strings of pea-like flowers that mature into long green pods. It's an old favorite of Victorian gardens that may well be present in Tazmania but be warned, the whole tree, especially the seed pods are highly poisonous so best avoided if likely to overhang property or anywhere where children, pets or livestock have access.

 

Many thanks for your suggestions. Will look into them, esp the Rowan and whitebeam and the crab apple ... and the corkscrew hazel also. Sounds interesting. The laburnaum not, both because it is poisonous and because it is golden (over the years I have discovered that the best thing for stress and for ultimate relaxation is a blue/white/pink shaded garden - although terrific for hot summers).

Although Tasmania is a wonderful place, getting plants in here from the mainland can be a right pain because of rigid quarantine laws (I wasn't even allowed to bring down my gardening tools with me *sob*) so it is going to be a matter of careful planning and even more carefu negotiation if I can't source trees from within Tasmania itself.