A walk in the woods

Now is the best time for a walk in the woods. Woodland plants are making the most of their brief opportunity before the canopy closes and the soft summer blanket of cool shade settles over them. And there is so much more to enjoy than just the bluebells, as if they weren’t reason enough to venture into the shadows.  The atmosphere in a wood in spring is pure magic. It is incredibly peaceful and soothing, and has the feel of a private and secret place. The bustle and noise of the world beyond melt away as your body tunes into the soft sounds, cool air and dappled light within. 

‘What has all this got to do with gardens’, you might be asking yourself. Well, plenty as it happens, as many elements of this arboreal world, as with much of mother nature’s design, can be translated to parts of the garden, albeit on a smaller scale.

Planting in the garden is all about layers and while woodlands do this naturally on a grand scale, the principles are the same. The woodland has an upper storey of oak and ash, with a mid storey of tall elders, hawthorns and hazels, followed by lower brambles, guelder rose and flowering currants. Finally a ground cover layer of ferns, wild garlic, wood anenomes and others form a patchwork of texture across the forest floor. Back in your garden the space available may make it difficult to manage four or five layers but three should be possible even in quite small spaces. A large multi-stemmed shrub, such as an Amelanchier lamarckii, underplanted with hydrangeas and viburnums and ‘bottomed’ off with some geraniums, Japanese anenomes, hellebores & ferns will work to great effect.

Woodland groundcover also often grows en masse in huge clumps of single species demonstrating beautifully the impact of bold swathes of planting. Again back in your garden just a few species planted in big groups will, with the right plants and in the right place, create a lovely naturalistic planting scheme.

Finally, woodland planting is all about texture and shades of green, for example the broad leaves of the wild garlic combining with the feathery foliage of wood anenomes and grassy snowy wood rush. Considering these aspects of your garden plants will provide even as much value to your borders as the flowers.

Regardless of the plans you have for your garden, I would recommend a walk in the woods anyway, just for pleasure. If you have read Bill Bryson’s book about walking the woods of the Appalachian Way and are worried about the prospect of bears and weirdos, I can at least guarantee that you won’t meet any of the former.