NATURALISTIC DESIGN
Here, of course, there is no place for classic or contemporary formal design. The single purpose is to create, or re-create, a small section of the woods with the shade, humus, and other environmental conditions woodsy plants can’t live without. The essence of the tiniest planting—even a colony of trillium at the foot of a spreading evergreen—is its naturalness. It doesn’t look planted, it belongs; it’s been there all the time. And it looks natural, of course, because it’s been planned that way.
Planning a woodland garden for the informal landscape is simplified by the fact that you begin with what you have—a shaded spot (preferably shaded by trees that drop needles or leaves, to enrich the soils) where hot, dry summer winds can’t parch the plants. There may be a natural stream, rocks, a slope, a hollow; or a place to put a rustic bench, rotting log, small pool—a focal point harmonious with the naturalistic theme. Or the size, shape, or contour of the garden may make it the object of interest without additional accent.
I know of one design that began with pruning a stunted sapling to reveal its bonsai-like lines, another that featured the trunk of a rheumatic, old, lightning-shattered evergreen. A soggy, low spot can be planted as a bog and backed up by rocks and shrubs. A brook can be coaxed to make space for a small, hummocky island. The narrow, meandering, stepping-stone path through the sharp point of our land invites you to take a walk in the woods.
Originality has challenging freedom in creating a woodland garden for level, regularly shaped grounds. You may replace the ubiquitous pachysandra in the needle-carpeted shade of a tall pine tree with native plants. Or use one of those difficult areas such as the angle of a hedge, wall, foundation or shaded patio; an unused corner of the property; the space underneath an overhanging bay window.
We used a useless area, about six feet wide and less than thirty feet long, between our city house and the property line, shaded not only by a few straggling pines but also by the house next door. There was a path, a pool, and a little bench. This was the last place I visited before I left for work in the morning, and the first when I came home at night. Somehow, the flower face of a bloodroot with a shawl of unrolling leaf around its shoulders had added piquancy in the city, where building banished the wild flowers a hundred years ago. The bloom of the first lady-slipper was a noteworthy triumph; the green of the ferns seemed specially fresh and mossy; the blue of the bottle gentians was almost unbelievable.