Woodland garden

Yes I know for a fact this is gonna create "rock envy" in RCN48! Some of you may have seen some before pics last year and had questions about the hardscape. Well take a walk up the hill with me. The entrance between the white pines.

Doug

Up the left side where I actually hope the Lily of the Valley's do take over!

To the right of the last area.

Lower woodland rhododendron.

Woodland color.

Lower woodland from above.

Woodland path back down the hill.

Always loved the look of Augusta National Golf Course during the Master's and wanted my own "Augusta" bed. Two Heucheras and the rest are azaleas and a Cherokee Princess dogwood just done in the past two weeks. Really hope I'm around long enough to see this one mature!

Last one is of the FUTURE steam down the present gully!

Now let's see yours, I need more ideas!!!

Doug

Sorry, forgot to say please ignore the present weeds!

Doug

Forgot one. The fern log in the area below the entrance. This whole area is all KY native plants.

Wow, what a GREAT area. Lots of open space - planting opportunities at every turn!
I'm eager to see how it all fills in. I presume you'll keep us posted!

Scott you know I love showing it off!! This all was BARE at least through last August according to my photo diary!

Doug,
As usual you have done a wonderful job. Everything looks really good. I am taking ideas from you since I have a blank slate for a woodland garden. I hope to start on it before the end of summer. We have the same taste in shade plants. Love your "Augusta National" azalea bed. :-)

Doug - you remain an inspiration to me and my sloping wooded terrain. Thanks for posting the photos.

Really enjoyed your tour, Doug. Great job taming that wicked slope. Nice view from the top. What is that little yellow-flowered plant in your 5th pic?

Sandy

Celandine Poppy. Native to the Eastern US..

Doug

Doug - have you been growing the celandine poppy for a while? I had heard that it can be invasive but I've had mine in the ground for about 4 or 5 years and only started seeing seedlings from it last year. I do like the yellow in the shady garden.

My celandine poppies reseed avidly, but they are easy to pull,
so I haven't considered them a problem yet. But admittedly, they are everywhere...
I never planted mine, they came along with the house 15yrs ago.
I have a 2-acre wooded lot. It was completely choked w/ invasive honeysuckle.
Like Doug, I worked for years to gradually clear out the jungle to create an open woodland.
Like magic, a million woodland wildflowers appeared out of nowhere.
I have celandine poppies, mayapples, trilliums, phlox, jack-in-the-pulpit popping up everywhere.
It still requires constant surveillance to keep the jungle at bay,
since that honeysuckle aggressively reappears also.

Scott, I assume you have Solomon's Seal wild there too? I have a ton of that popping up.

Doug

Gorgeous photos! I can only immagine how it will look in a couple of years!

How much would you charge to do all that over again, only on a 25 acre wooded hillside choked with honeysuckle? LOL
Forget 'rock envy'...I have garden envy! Beautiful job!

Doug, yes, I have solomon seals. And of course virginia bluebells doing their thing right now.
And geraneums, also blooming now. And bloodroot, of course.
This is a picture of the wild phlox which showed up after I cleared the choking honeysuckle out of the woods.

Ooo, those are beautiful, Weerobin! I, too, was excited to see native wildflowers popping up in the areas where I have eradicated honeysuckle.

That's funny, my VA Bluebells are about finished blooming now, and the Bloodroot too. Thought we'd have similar growing situations.

Doug

Whaaaaa, I don't think we have VA Bluebells here...at least I haven't seen any. Lots of bloodroot, though. Funny, most of that is done blooming, but yesterday I ran across a patch that is still going! We have a bumper crop of trout lilies this year, which are one of my favorites.

Well my VA Bluebells are not native to my location, they were purchased, but there is a huge native stand not too far from where I work that is absolutely breathtaking when in bloom.

Doug

I just saw them at Lowe's...think if I planted some, they'd spread?

The native trillium have multiplied here - spotted leaves and maroon flowers. I wasn't aware that VA bluebells and blood root were natives in the midwest - at least south of here. Should I stop feeling guilty because the bluebells have "escaped" from my garden and are now growing in the high spots of the wooded wetlands?

Cindy, spotted leaves and maroon flowers sound like Sessile Trilliums. I always use the USDA plant database websight when checking to see if something is native to KY or not.

Here's the link: http://plants.usda.gov/index.html

Doug

We have those here in the northern tip of the state, too.

Did someone call my name? LOL And yes, I DO have serious "rock envy" :( I remember the pictures of this area when you first started working on it - you've done an amazing job! Lovely plantings but you know what I zoom in on first - the rocks! I've been eyeing some in the creek that would look spectacular where I need them but I can't figure out how to heave them up over the 10' bank! I think I need one of those ramps, you know the kind that has rollers on it? I could just turn it on, load the rocks and they'd fall off at the top of the slope! Yeah right, in my dreams :(

Cindy, I've got tons of native bloodroot and bluebells both.
I used to carefully avoid injuring them while planting other plants.
I've given up worrying about it, since they're everywhere.
Here's a spread of bloodroot earlier this spring.

Doug - thanks for the reference. Have bookmarked that one - will definitely come in handy. Especially since I'm trying to id a native wildflower here that I can't quite figure out. Might have to take a pic and post it.
Weerobin - Beautiful pic. Did you have to lay on the ground to get that angle? :) Blood root flowers are some of the first flowers I look for in the spring. I originally planted a group of them together and it was a really nice sight but over the years, they've migrated to other spots in the garden. Just as nice to see unexpected flowers show up elsewhere.

Cindy, I have to thank RCN or Stormy - I think it was one of them, but I don't remember for sure.
My new camera (Coolpix P100) has a swivel LCD display which allows you to take ground-level pix even if your knees won't allow you to bend at the required angle. I really like it.

Camera sounds cool!

Updated:

The Blooming Bardstown Garden Tour was on June 5th. We had around 250 people come through.

The new bench painted to catch the eyes and pull you up the hill and of course a place to sit when you make the climb!

Doug

Gets just enough dappled sunlight for a variety of plants.

Some of the ferns and what's left of some of the Bloodroot.

Looking up the right side. The paths are all finished and chipped.