Woodland garden

[vaneramos]

At the cottage I have a woodland garden. It arose from the clearing over the new septic bed, which was constructed in about 1996. Few trees needed to be cut, but the area lay in the deep shade of two large hemlocks and some other trees. My parents didn't want a lawn that needed to be cut, so I volunteered to build a garden. I had recently left my marital home with its big garden, and my hands were aching to work the soil.

I made a serious beginning one summer, then the garden was neglected for several seasons. This summer I returned to the project with help from Brenna.

I envisioned the garden incorporating those elements which characterize the land around our cottage property: rock, trees, water and woodland plants. My vision was partly inspired by photographs of Kokadera, the moss temple, in Kyoto, Japan. It would include mostly native flora with a few ornamental accents.

The plan is roughly an equilateral triangle with one corner pointing toward the cottage. The side window of the living room looks through this corner, with one of the big hemlocks to one side. The far side of the triangle runs parallel to the property line, where the workers who constructed the septic bed set up a row of large boulders they had excavated.

This is not a rock garden in the traditional sense, but rock is an essential part. Our property lies on the great Precambrian Shield that forms a big chunk of Canada. It is one of the oldest rock formations in the world, about one billion years old. Much of the local rock consists of pink and black granite, but significant mineral intrusions occur in the vicinity. When I was a boy, we could hike to a quarry near Lake Fletcher and collect interesting rocks. Four years ago someone inherited the land and started exploiting the mineral vein more actively. Amateur collecting is no longer allowed. Fortunately I started building the garden before that, so I paid several visits to the quarry and brought back loads of colourful stone.

The dominant mineral is white quartz. This looks slightly unnatural as a rock garden, but in fact I found a vein of quartz in The Verdance behind our cottage this spring, so constructing a white outcrop in the garden seemed appropriate. Also prevalent is biotite mica, which forms pliable glassy sheets. The third mineral is feldspar, which is mostly pink, but the garden features a few pieces of a vibrant orangish-red colour.

The first summer I began constructing the main path, which would curve through the garden toward a seat at one of the back corners. I also laid out a side path. I used worn boulders with flat or gently rounded surfaces, some found around the property and others brought from the bottom of the lake. The path would not be straight but winding with turns and steps, encouraging visitors to walk slowly and look around them. This technique is used in Japanese gardens. The garden does not have any visible water, but the uneven placement of rocks is intended to simulate stepping stones across a stream. In one place a collections of small, rounded stones resembles a dry riverbed. Along the way I intended to set up points of interest—for example collections of the mineral samples—or sacred places. In the centre of the garden I originally planned to construct a rock mosaic depicting a loon, one of the most obvious and interesting denizens of our lake. But it never got past the planning stages, and now I think it would be too cumbersome and garish for this subtle garden.

The garden is almost completely shaded all day. The space lost its rich forest topsoil when the septic bed was laid, and I have not had the resources to replace it. I didn't realize at first what a challenge it would be to establish plants there. A thick layer of humus gets deposited every fall, but I still have to contend with poor sandy soil that holds scarce moisture and nutrients. Fortunately the area has reliable rainfall, and this summer was particularly cool and wet, ideal for transplanting.




Polypodium vulgare


Many of the plants I originally bought or transplanted from nearby have not fared well, but the ferns have done well, sometimes even volunteering. In fact they have established the mood of the garden, one which I am happy to cultivate. The most successful species so far is common polypody, Polypodium vulgare. Other species show varying degrees of enthusiasm: Christmas fern, spinulose wood fern, ostrich fern, sensitive fern and cinnamon fern. Several Japanese painted ferns have survived from the original planting, but without flourishing.

The only flowering plant that has proven itself is foxglove. A pale yellow-flowered species, Digitalis grandiflora, raises a few small spires each summer. A pinkish cultivar has begun seeding profusely through the back of the garden, and it's welcome to do so. Bearded nettle, Lamium maculatum, has spread some pretty silver groundcover, too, but it barely flowers. One clump of toad-lily, Tricyrtis hirta, bloomed this summer for the fourth time. Aquilegia, globeflower, Aconitum, bleeding heart, Viola odorata, Astilbe, hostas and sweet cicely all behave indifferently, sprouting a few pale shoots each year. Perhaps with a more aggressive fertilizing regimen they would improve. Sweet woodruff has spread abundantly around the back of the garden, but even it flowers parsimoniously.

Some mosses have done particularly well. We have brought many pieces of rotten wood and bark from the nearby forest to encourage these tiny plants. Many different species live throughout the woods, so I have to experiment to see which ones perform best. Fire moss is good at colonizing bare sand, but it doesn't like the shade as much as other species do. We also have three species of club-moss, elegant little plants that look like miniature conifers. They like rich, moist soil though, so they're slow to establish.

I should also mention the trees, which are an essential part of the garden. Besides the two giant hemlocks, the garden is enclosed by several smaller ones along with several mature yellow birch, a few young balsam firs and a venerable white cedar, which probably dates back to the forest fire that destroyed this forest in about 1918. The understorey includes hobblebush (a sculptural and attractive species of Viburnum with plate-like leaves) and mountain maple, both shrubs worthy of any woodland garden. Into one corner I transplanted a sapling of my favourite tree, American beech, which has barely grown in five years but appears healthy.

This summer I continued constructing the paths, but they're still incomplete. Several boulders came from the front path down from our driveway to the kitchen door. Erosion had gradually exposed these until they became a hazard, particularly in the dark. I excavated them and moved them to the garden. On one I was amazed to find some glacial striations, deep gouges left by a passing glacier millenia ago. I gave it a prominent place in the garden path, another testament to the rich natural history of its environs.

My parents brought a new wooden garden bench, which fits nicely at the end of the path beside the new quartz garden. As well as fortifying the population of mosses and ferns, I also transplanted some of the most attractive native plants, including Gaultheria procumbens (wintergreen), partridge-berry and Coptis groenlandica (goldthread). Corn-lilies and Oxalis are already established. A lot of tree seedlings had sprung up over the past several years: mostly hemlock, balsam and sugar maple. These, the only weeds, had to be removed. Besides marring the appearance of the garden, their roots would eventually destroy the septic bed.

This summer the garden was visited abundantly by mushrooms, particularly Coltrichia perennis and Marasmius siccus, which I photographed and posted here in early August, and a Paxillus species, possibly P. involutus, which appeared in numbers last week. I learned how to do a spore print, putting a mushroom cap on a sheet of white paper and covering it with a bowl for a few hours until it expelled its spores. This fungus gave a brown print.

On some old white birch logs in the woods behind the garden I also found some spectacular masses of a coral fungus, possibly Ramaria stricta. Each mass is twice the size of my fist.




Ramaria sp.


Near the entrance to the garden stand two low piles of rounded stones. These were constructed by Brenna in early July. In fact she built a whole series of them one day, inspired by one which I made in the hydro cut behind our cottage. I, in turn, was inspired by Andy Goldsworthy and other sculptors of nature. It was a fairly simple thing, all I could think of that particular day, but the only such work I did all summer. I hope to explore the idea more this fall.

Next year I will continue constructing the paths and determine what feature should replace the mosaic at the centre of the garden, perhaps some kind of stone basin containing water to offer reflections to anyone sitting on the log seat nearby.

The complete photo tour appears in this gallery: 2004 Woodland Garden.

Comments

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

lovely stuff Van

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

hey Van, when you changed your user name how did you do it?
i like the idea of changinn mine, gods know i have changed in the past year or so.

mind of the munkey, what do you think?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I like it. :-)

You have to pay $15 to change your username, and you can never get the old one back. You can read all about it in this FAQ.

How do I change my username?

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

thanks, i had looked through the faqs but not closely enough i guess...

not sure I am going to do it yet, but the thought is there. mind of the munkey says more to me and about me than ubermunkey

be well
big guy

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I sounds lovely :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's shaping up. After all the digging this summer, part of it looks like a battle zone. It will take a couple years for the edges to soften. And of course I'm not finished. But I'm pleased with it.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Are you going to make on of those earth-art things in it?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

In July Brenna constructed a couple stone piles near the entrance. You can see them in the background of this photo. She got the idea from one that I made elsewhere with the sculpture thing in mind. I want to incorporate more along these lines into the garden. I had in mind something more durable than the sun disc in the central place, but it just occurred to me that a "sand box," some place to create ephemeral works, would also be appropriate.

While working on the garden last week I realized the whole thing is a sculpture.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Nice. We need to start finding yet more shade-loving plants. Not that I imagine we'll have enough discpline to create anything that could properly be called a "woodland garden". I'd love to see yours some time.

My vision was partly inspired by photographs of Kokadera, the moss temple, in Kyoto

I visited that when I was on tour with my college chorus in 1967 -- it is a magical place. It was cloudy and drizzly the day we were there, but the postcards I bought of it (wherever they might be) were all taken in bright sun. It's way beautiful either way.

I wanted to visit it again when John and I were in Kyoto in 1990, but it turned out it could only be seen by pre-arranged appointment. I don't know if that's a change since 1967, or if our group had in fact arranged it in advance (which, come to think of it, is quite likely).

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Whenever you come this way, we'll try to arrange a visit to the cottage. Of course that might not be practical, as it's still my parents' summer home and I have to work around their schedule. Early May precedes the blackfly invasion, and my parents don't move in until July 1.

Thanks for the pointer about Kokadera. You're so fortunate to have seen it. I would love to visit it someday. I better not plan on just dropping in.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It is, Craig. I hope I can smuggle you there for a weekend sometime.

[robearal.livejournal.com]

Absolutely lovely.

I simply must work on doing a trip to Ontario within the next year or 2.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It would be great to meet you. I take it you would be interested in doing some outdoors stuff in the right weather? That certainly appeals to me. My cottage is rarely available because it is still my parents' summer home, but I love camping.