Filling a hole in the forest

When a homeowner was forced to remove dead and dying trees, he left a patch of earth. A scar. He wanted it filled, but with what?

This is when it pays to see the direction nature is going in.

In the forest, these patches open up in the woods all the time. A storm fells a giant beech and suddenly opportunity beckons. Plants whose seeds have sat quietly in the soil for years find the light that’s now hitting the ground gives them a chance to grow. So the process of succession begins – a tag-team of plants that get bigger and woodier until the trees are back. Eventually.

The key is to read that opportunity and steer it in a way that fits nature’s direction and still looks good.

Shrubs

First I chose some shrubs – understorey plants that will give structure to the space: pagoda dogwood, hazel, the native and versatile northern bush honeysuckle.

In nature, these would pop up where seeds had landed, where the mixture of light and moisture was just right so the seed was able to germinate.

When I design, I think of what would look good as well as the conditions the shrubs will grow in. So as I stood at the bottom of the slope, I mapped a path, a “desire line” the eye would go in as it scanned and made sense of the space.

At the centre of the view I stipulated a pagoda dogwood grown in the form of a tree – this is what the eye would rest on. Then leading up to this, an eye-path of hazels that frame the left and right-hand sides of the path as the eye travels. Then, patterned around the sides and giving the eye somewhere to rest were the lower-growing honeysuckles.

Perennials

Next, the perennials – the texture and the flowers. A mostly shaded site makes it hard for summer blooms – the kind of plants that grow there make the most of the time before the trees leaf out, putting out small, delicate flowers in spring, or the fall. That’s why it would be a mistake to plant summer-flowering plants because we want summer flowers. The poor things will struggle.

So I choose plants that suit the conditions but arrange them in patterns that please the eye. A drift of asters here for a blue-ish fall, a patch of early meadowrue there for the spring, patches of wild columbine for its red flowers the hummingbirds love.

Groundcovers

Finally, the critical groundcover – the thing that will stop the land doing whatever it wants.

In this shaded site, sedges and violets did the work. Two species of sedges, similar to grasses, slowly spread over time, knitting together into a fine-textured, patterned mass. Violets spread, too, and their fat leaves and delicate flowers provide a contrast to the grassy sedges.

When humans and nature work together, everyone wins.

I read what the land wants and choose plants that serve the direction the land is going. But I also listen to what the client wants: an environment that shows intention and enhances their cottage.

It’s a way for everyone to get what they want without harming the other. Imposing our will on nature results in struggle at best, disaster at worst. But letting nature just do its thing isn’t necessarily what we want close to home.

What will this site look like in five years? A scar will be replaced by a carpet of sedges, patches of juicy violets, drifts of airy columbine and strong, proud hazels and dogwoods.