The Woodland Garden

If your garden is either wooded or surrounded by dense trees, it will benefit from a perpetually moderated climate that is warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. Its three fully developed dimensions—its volume—offer potential supplies of leaves, wood-fuel, animal forage, perhaps fruit and nuts. However, the soil will be dominated by tree roots end parts of the garden may be heavily shaded. You may also find that the winter sun cannot reach your house, thereby increasing the need for heating and lighting.

Living in a wood may be just what you want, especially in hot or arid conditions. It offers abundant wildlife and edible products from wild plants, such as elderberries, persimmon, pawpaw, juniper, chestnut, hickory, honey locust, mulberry, hazel, walnut, and honey mesquite, although you would be lucky to have more than a few such trees in a garden randomly stocked with natives or typical ornamentals.

If your garden is new but complete with trees, or was abandoned long ago, the wood will have an undergrowth of shrubs and a tangled understorey of semi-woody and herbaceous plants. Some of these shay be edible, such as blackberries or cloudberries, or useful in other ways. The fungi growing on the ground, on trunks or on rotting wood, in great abundance at certain times of year will prove to be most valuable; few other epiphytes are edible, but like mistletoe have their uses.

The trouble with non-edible varieties of trees and shrubs is just that: you can't eat them. Their potential yields are also difficult to harvest on a sustainable basis without killing them, although twigs for kindling, leaves or needles for mulch, and leafmould are notable exceptions. To manage a miniature forest effectively with minimum interference you are obliged to get some help from animals: goats, pigs, chickens, bush turkeys, doves, and bees.

A compromise is selective thinning. You can send goats in to clear the undergrowth: they will not harm established trees. Then you can fell trees that coppice well (willow, birch, hazel, chestnut, rowan, ash, elm, lime, etc.), convert the heartwood for timber, leave offcuts for firewood, feed brash to the goats, and stockpile a supply of bean poles, peasticks, and brushwood for miscellaneous purposes.

The coppiced trees can become permanent goat forage without the need to cut them: the goats will become self-catering. Further harvesting of tree products can be achieved by chickens feeding on soil macrofauna, which feed on fallen leaves, and doves feeding in the tree canopy beyond the garden, but housed in quarters that would allow convenient culling and collection of guano. Most animals need fencing, either permanent or electric, and you need to put this cost into your calculations.

Shade tolerant crops

Growing edible herbaceous crops in a woodland garden is hard because shade and root competitionfrom trees inhibit growth; and you need to keep the animals away. But it is possible. One method is to borrow a pair of pigs to dig up the roots of the understorey and prepare the ground. Complement the work of the pigs by cutting any tree roots off down to at least a spade's depth, around an area designated for crops.

These crops have to be shade-tolerant edibles or otherwise useful plants, preferably native perennial species that can hold their own against the tree roots. What counts as "shade-tolerant" varies considerably from one part of the world to another.

The overwhelming feature of the herb layer in woodland gardens is shade. Dry shade is always a damp habitat; greater variety comes from damp shady habitats: dwarf palms and arum lilies grow in a subtropical climate; ferns, irises, and candelabra pnmulas thrive in a temperate situation .

In seriously sunny climates, you will be able to grow "proper" vegetables, and indeed they may well benefit and thrive in the shade; while in the gloomier climates of the world, leaf crops and herbs may be all that you can grow and harvest under an established tree canopy.

If you want highly productive conventional crops, or sun-loving ornamentals, your only option is to clear some trees to let in the light. You must do this on the sunward side: trees and annual crops may then happily coexist, provided the trees are far enough away not to steal the moisture and nutrients.

Unexpectedly, trees do not have deep roots on the whole. Instead, the roots spread far beyond the drip line in the top 18 in. (0.5 m) of soil, typically covering an area greater than that of the canopy. This means that you should plant your annual row crops as far away as possible from the trees or else install some kind of root barrier. And focus activities other than growing under the trees—paths, compost, animal housing and foraging, storage, sheds, or seats.

Integrating trees

All the foregoing assumes you have inherited a woody garden but are determined that the snarl of the chainsaw shall disturb the peace as little as possible. But perhaps your garden lacks trees and you want some; or you have some trees but would like to grow more. These, in many ways, are happier situations because you can choose trees for productivity, wildlife, scent, or appearance, and fit them into your overall garden design.

The following guidelines should help you to integrate trees into a mixed-purpose garden:

• Move small trees that are in the wrong place. They may not like to be moved,; and may sulk a bit, but it could give you a head start
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• Choose trees that are not aggressive rooters, particularly for small gardens.
  
  
• For some productive trees, you need more than one individual to assure pollination. In a large garden, try matchmaking complementary varieties; in a small garden, choose self-pollinating varieties.
  
  
• Fruit and nut trees on dwarf rootstocks, or genetically miniature varieties, have tremendous advantages in almost any garden. You can plant more in a given space, with an increase in overall yield; you can grow more different types; they are far easier to look after, prune, and harvest; they bear fruit quicker; they can be slipped into odd comers; there is less root competition. They are expensive, but you may consider it money well spent.
  
  
• Bees are very good pollinators for all your fruit and nut trees; they are probably the one domesticated species capable of harvesting useful products from inaccessibly large trees— and they may forage far beyond your garden, too.
  
  
• Group together plants with similar requirements. This implies a certain planned segregation that contrasts with the riotousness of natural systems. The most common pattern in mid to high latitudes is likely to be a linear sequence from the sunward side, starting with annuals, through herbaceous perennials, bushes, shrubs, and dwarf trees to standard trees.
  
  Such a pattern minimizes conflicts of shade and root competition. It also means you can site functional processes, such as storage, compost, leafmould, paths, and animal houses within the root zones of larger trees; stockproof fencing along the same lines allows animals access to the wood and thick foliage, but prevents them reaching the more "delicate" parts of the garden.
  
  
• Compress segregation patterns by "stacking" vertically, with smaller plants growing under larger ones. There is some competition for light, water, and nutrients, but by suitable spacing and choice of varieties you can increase yields and diversity.

Spacing and choice of varieties maximize the diversity and productivity of use of plants in three dimensions. Nearly all the plants are perennials so there is no need for tilling. The only maintenance required involves light pruning, weeding, and occasional "editing" This is not a good method for growing staple crops or annual vegetables, but it does produce all the "extras" in an elegant and sustainable way.

A tree house makes a perfect woodland sanctuary. The geometry is often haphazard and naturalistic as the structure follows the form of the branches. You can erect walkways between trees, and platforms to sit on.

Designing an orchard

The orchard is a classic and tested pattern: well-spaced fruit or nut trees combine the qualities of an open wood with those of a meadow. The small trees, grouped together in rigid rows or more pleasing naturalistic patterns, are friendly places with grass that is grazed or cut for hay. The hay becomes mulch for the trees, feeding them and suppressing weeds.

Orchards may be tremendously varied: more than one of any species may give you a glut that's hard to cope with. You can play your part in conserving old and rare varieties, too. These heritage species can be combined with bush fruit, perennial or self seeding ground crops (as in Robert Hart's forest garden pattern), or with strips or islands of more conventional annual row crops. You can protect the orchard with fruiting hedges of semi-wild types, such as elder, scrviceberrv, bullace, damson plums, sloe, brush cherry, and flowering quince.

Tree houses are built to anchor securely without some damage to the tree, which makes the use of stilts, an inventive detail. Stilts also allow the tree to continue growing, with little damage to the house or tree.

Many trees are an important source of pollen for bees, so it snakes sense to site beehives in woodland. Coppiced woodland makes an excellent habitat for wildlife, especially dormice.

Coppicing also allows sunlight to penetrate to the floor of the woodland, which means that spring flowers are then able to proliferate.

Planning and planting a woodland edge habitat

The site:

The ideal position for a woodland edge habitat is one where the midday sun will shine over the house and along the length of the garden. The afternoon sun will then shine on an area—containing a patio, mown lawn, and a pond, for example—close to the house. To ensure that sunlight filters through to the trees at the far end of the garden, you need to plant a graduated height sequence. This night be a meadow, then a herb layer, shrubs, then coppiced and pollarded trees before the large trees begin.

When planting trees, consider the animals they will attract—the oak family, for example, draws the greatest diversity of species. Bear in mind, too, the mature height and spread in relation to your garden. A full-grown oak, 100 ft (30 m) high and 70 ft (20 m) wide, may need pollarding to avoid casting your neighbour's garden in perpetual shadow. Maples and hazels can be coppiced every seven to ten years. Smaller and faster-growing species, such as birch or thorns, may reach 30–60 ft (10–20 m) but do not live so long.

Access:

For constant use, you will need a path of gravel or bark chippings. A few smaller paths through the herb layer will help to protect flowers and wildlife, especially in the spring. After the herbs have flowered and the seeds dispersed, clear the area to give access for winter pruning and coppicing in the woodland behind. Herb trimmings mixed with cut meadow hay and piled up in the woodland make an attractive habitat for many species.

Planting and maintenance:

If you can, buy container-grown trees when they are about 6 ft (2 m) tall and plant them at 10 ft (3 m) intervals. They will need to be staked and mulched every year with a layer of coarsely chopped forest bark. If you buy saplings, plant them closer together and protect them with growing tubes or cones, particularly if rabbits or squirrels are common in your neighbourhood. At the height of the growing season you may need to cut back tall herbs.

Shrubs are best planted about 3 ft (1 m) apart and in groups, leaving glades for lower-growing herbs. Prune lightly if necessary in the early years, but wait until shrubs are established before first coppicing. You may want to wait until late winter before pruning some seed and frnit-hearing species of shrub in order to leave a varied diet for overwintering birds.

Trees and shrubs, now well established, will be supporting climbing plants, such as ivy and honeysuckle. Rotting logs will be host to mosses, lichens, and flying insects. The tightly woven heaps you have made from coppiced branches and annual prunings will, as they rot down, offer refuge for insects, small birds, and mammals. In spring, the cut grass and herb pile become a home to small reptiles, mice, and bees.

A rich and varied habitat will develop over the years. In early spring, the woodland floor will be smothered with native flowers you have introduced. Birds and insects, such as butterflies and bees, form a vibrant part of the evolving ecosystem. They help to build up other species—birds, for example, may bring in new seeds from the surrounding habitats. During the summer, cut grass helps to replenish the habitat. The autumn brings the display of fruits, rambling berries and the smaller nuts.