The Magic of Woodland Gardens
With strategic pruning and the addition of just a bit of imposing ornamentation, a clump of trees can become a woodland Garden. You’ll first have to do some serious chainsaw-and-lopper editing. After you’ve felled a few trees and carved away unwanted limbs you’ll have created a glade.
Mount a single, vertical piece of statuary to punctuate the newly-made clearing. Plant low-maintenance ground covers -- creeping vinca is always useful, ferns are tidy -- and lay some stepping stones. Presto! You’ve got an outdoor hideaway. Follow Simplicity and Restraint as your woodland-design principles, and you can’t go wrong.

Well-pruned birches serve as sentinels along a Woodland Garden path in Norfolk, England. Courtesy of nanquick.com

Sissinghurst’s Nuttery, planted with hazelnuts, is enhanced by a guardian statue. Courtesy of nanquick.com

In Shropshire, the Shade Garden at Wollerton Old Hall is decorated with a single obelisk. Courtesy of nanquick.com
