PLANTING
Although plants are chosen for any garden according to light, soil, moisture, and other cultural requirements, woodland plants permit less leeway than most others. This is a matter of ecology, defined as “the total impact of the environment and the plant’s accommodation to it.” Some delicate plants are, of course, less adaptable than other more rugged species. Check catalogues, reference books, and other sources to learn all you can about each plant before you plant it.
A quick word about shade. There is full shade, or deep shade, created all year by evergreens, walls, or buildings. And there is woodland shade created only in summer by deciduous trees. The hill near our house where rattlesnake plantain, pipsissewa, and pink lady-slippers grow is dark and cool in summer, but bright in spring, fall, and winter when the trees are bare of leaves. This is an important distinction.
In the interest of conservation—American wild flowers are threatened not only by bulldozers but also by thoughtless, criminally careless humans—private woodland gardens often become the home for plants dug from the wild. Last fall, one of my dearest friends methodically moved dozens of maidenhair ferns into a tiny bit of woods on her property to save them from extinction when their fronds were being picked in bunches to fill out bouquets. But this is conservation only when the plants are transplantable (a number of the most precious species are not) and are moved to quarters with growing conditions to their liking. Otherwise, they might as well die where they are.
In digging woodland plants, always dig deep and take as much of the surrounding soil as possible, and disturb the roots as little as you can. Protect the transplants against drying sun and wind until they are set in their new homes. If you can dig them with the roots intact, you can take most plants at any time during the growing season. The safest times are immediately after flowering or during fall dormancy.
Unless it is a matter of conservation, I never dig woodland plants. I buy them (they’re surprisingly inexpensive) from a local nursery or from several mail-order specialists. The nursery plants are pot-grown, and even fussy types transplant without loss. By mail they arrive bare-rooted—in early fall for all but the summer and fall varieties—but crisp and lively in their packing of moist sphagnum moss. Sometimes they even start to send out new roots and sprouts en route. If I can, I get mail-order plants into the ground before dusk on the day they arrive. Soil around transplants is kept moist and mulched with leaves until they take hold.
Years ago some suppliers collected the plants they sold, and some sources of slow-spreading types were completely devastated. Today, I believe, specialists grow their stocks of woodland plants, either under glass or in woodsy nurseries. They’re doing more to preserve these native treasures than to annihilate them.
The best of all sources is by propagation—seeds, cuttings, division of wild plants—because you’re not only increasing the population, but you’re also starting with plants that from babyhood are accustomed to your growing conditions and don’t have to make difficult adjustments. Even though it may be slow, this is the only method for a number of nontransplantable species.
If the garden contains shrubs that will serve as background for small, shy woodland plants, that’s fine. If it doesn’t, you may want to plant some (these, too, are available by mail), because few native woods plants are spectacular enough to make a big display of their own. And because woods plants are modest, they’re best planted in colonies a half dozen or more of one species, not in mixed colors or varieties. Set the groups in the foreground, where they’re easy to see. Allow plenty of space between groups for natural increase without crowding. Arrange more striking, tall, spiky plants here and there to add the interest of accent, just as you would in a conventional flower bed.
Care after planting includes the expected careful watering, and keeping the plants moist and shielded from heat and wind until they are growing on their own. For their first winter, you may want to supplement the natural mulch of leaves with salt hay or something similarly light and airy, held in place by chicken wire or branches. This mulch must be removed extra early for early-flowering species. By their second season the plants should be ready to be watered by rain, and fed and protected by trees, without your help. Don’t fiddle with them, pull off leaves or seed pods, or move them about unless you must.