Touring a Woodland Garden

Dave: Hi. I’m Dave Epstein. This is Growing Wisdom. We’re here today at Garden in the Woods. What a great time of the year it is! Scott: Beautiful. Dave: You invited me out here because in spring time, a lot of stuff is in bloom. Which garden is this? Scott: This is the Woodland Garden. This is our oldest section of the garden. Will Curtis’s cottage is right here. This is when he started in the 1930’s. He would walk out his front door and begin his work right here. Dave: What are some of the things that nature has done to make this so special? Scott: Well, the three things that nature has done; If you go out and take a walk in the woods, you’ll really start to see this and that is the layering of the forest. And the layer starts with this really big high oak canopy up here that dapples some sunlight through and then you get into the mid-story. So you got some trees like the Cercis Canadensis, we have the Magnolia Ashei way off at the back and then even smaller things like the azaleas and rhododendrons that are all down through here. And the last layer is the rapacious layer, the perennial layer that grows on the forest floor. Dave: Tell me about some of the highlights in terms of the plants that we see here, Scott. Scott: You have to think about the microclimates within the Woodland Garden because you’re going to have different levels of sunlight. You’re going to have direct sunlight that’s coming down, part sun, part shade and total shade. Really close to the path, we have some Creeping Phlox growing which likes a lot more sunlight and that’s why it stays towards the path. And then we’ll get into a little bit of a darker area which might have some things like Maidenhair Fern growing which takes a lot less sunlight to grow in really dark areas, sort of where the leucothoe way up on the hills where the hemlocks are going to be growing. Dave: And you’ve talked about part sun and part sun, those terms, I think people can get very confused about. Scott: Exactly. Dave: Can you help clarify those a little bit. Scott: The way I sort of define them is if the sun is six hours or more of direct sunlight during the summer. And then you get the part sun which is about four to six hours of direct sun. The part shade would then be two to four hours of direct sun. Shade is less than two hours and deep shade is completely no direct sunlight or whatsoever. Dave: And does the time matter? Scott: Absolutely. The morning is not as bright and direct as the afternoon sun and the temperatures having heated up as much around the plants either. Dave: What can folks do or be aware of that connects back to this woodland shade garden. Scott: I think the important thing to remember is that these old growth forests or these old forests where there are really high canopies are irreplaceable. So when you get rid of that, you’re starting to alter the ecosystem underneath it. So some of the dappled shade loving kind of things like perpediums or some of the trilliums can’t take that direct sun all season long and will have a real effect on how they can grow. Dave: So let’s just say, Scott, that you’re building or you’re buying a house that doesn’t have much landscaping around it, what would you do? Scott: Start with some big oaks and start with some big maples and let those grow up a little bit. It might take you a few years to get all of your woodland garden in because you need to let the canopies start to grow. Dave: Well Scott, thanks for the tour. And patience, we have to be patient. But the other great thing about a woodland shade garden is that it’s always changing and always updating. And we’re always updating here at Growing Wisdom, so come back every week for all of our tips and some helps in all of our latest garden videos.