Woodland Gardens

Woodland Gardens as part of “Rock Gardening”

Rock gardening has included many woodland plants since its very beginning. As visitors hiked up mountains to see true alpines they passed through wooded tracts and meadows on the way to the summits. These sub-alpine woodlands and sub-alpine meadows are home to many beautiful and these have been grown in gardens near rock gardens containing alpines since the beginning of rock/alpine gardening in the 19th century.

The upright elegance of woodland plants makes a pleasing contrast to the tight buns and cushions of the classic rock garden. In a larger rock garden the brightly flowered plants from sub-alpine meadows fit in well forming the backbone of spring color with the small true alpine gems planted near the paths for easy viewing. we will get to sub-alpine meadows in a little while, for now let's consider woodlands.

Woodlands in the sub-alpine zone are often rocky because they have developed by ecological succession from bare talus slopes and boulder fields as soil accumulated in between the rocks of mountain valleys since the end of the Pleistocene Glacial Epoch. Often the boulders and rocks are still partly exposed and they provide a wonderful backdrop for the woodland wild flowers growing among them. These boulder filled woodlands show us that a rock garden doesn't have to be consist of only of high alpine buns and cushions.

Nowadays woodland gardens contain many plants that are not from mountainous country but they will still look appropriate in a boulder filled woodland garden. That is if the gardener has access to boulders! Many Rock Gardeners don't have the budget for buying many boulders or the muscles move and arrange them or even access to buy suitable ones. Thus it is widely recognized in the world of Alpine/Rock Gardening that woodland plants “count” as rock garden plants even if they aren't growing among rocks.

Most authors of rock Gardening books have included descriptions and cultivation advice for woodland plants in their books.
First in the hearts of many NARGS members is H. Lincoln Foster's book Rock Gardening which has a nice chapter on “the Wooded Area” and sections devoted to Arisaemas, Epigaeas, Trilliums, Sanguinaria, Shortias and many more.

If we check some European books on Alpines such as Will Ingwersen's “Manual of Alpine Plants” there are many woodlanders described and recommended in them too. Including, you guessed it, Arisaemas, Epigaeas, Trilliums, Sanguinaria, Shortias and more! Royton Heath in his monumental “Collector's Alpines” gives space to four of these five genera leaving out only Arisaema and I suspect that he might include it if he were alive to revise it today since the popularity of Arisaemas among alpine gardeners growing in pans have grown amazingly. Wilhelm Schacht's in his rather smaller book “Rock Gardens” still found space to mention and give growing advice for the same four genera as well as other woodlanders. I could go on almost endlessly but it is apparent that Rock and Alpine Gardeners have long considered woodland plants and gardens built for them to be, if not an essential part of rock gardening, at least a highly desirable part of it.

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Types of Woodlanders
Spring Ephemeral wildflowers? Plants that emerge from the ground in the spring then go dormant in the Summer often not long after the deciduous forest trees leaf out.
Summer green perennials? Plant that stay in leaf all summer long and don't go dormant until Autumn.
Winter green Woodland perennials? are plants that emerge in the late summer and stay in leaf all winter long and that go dormant in the late spring or early summer.
Shrubs both deciduous? and evergreen?

Very few plants tolerate full shade all year log, such as is found in a plantation of evergreens trees such as the pines and spruces of the Black Forest of Germany.

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References are listed on the Recomended Rock Gardening Books Page

• Manual of Alpine Plants, Will Ingwersen
• Rock Gardening, H. Lincoln Foster with illustrations by his wife Laura Louise (Timmy) Foster
• Rock Gardens, Wihelm Schacht
• Collectors Alpines, Royton E. Heath

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Some Woodland Garden Plants

Asarums


Glaucidiums


Hepaticas


Jeffersonia dubia is a fine plant for woodland gardens


Podophyllums


many Primulas including Candelabra types


Trilliums

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