A Few More Woodland Plants Added

Category: Starting and Maintaining the Garden | Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:58 pm

We put our cabin on the market. I doubt it will sell since the economy is so bad. Just in case we get lucky and it does find someone to love it as much as we have I have been transplanting my favorite woodland plants to our home in town. It is nice to be able to enjoy them on a daily basis.

Cabin in the rainforest ( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

A lot of trilliums come up in the area we keep mowed so I dig a few baby plants each time we go up. Was able to get six whole plants. Not an easy task. I have to use an old fork to tease around the glacial till trying not to break the stem off the bulb. I've gotten much better at it with practice. My woodland garden in town will one day have quite a spring time show of trilliums if I am lucky.

Up at the cabin I'd stuck some of the vanilla leaf (Achlys triphylla) in a large pot with sword ferns eight years ago. The plants had been uprooted when we replaced the back door deck. Figured someone else might just think they were weeds and wanted them somewhere at home. The soil was light and perfectly damp in the pot so all I had to do was reach in and unearth the roots. Ended up with almost a dozen starts.

Two or three years ago we had our first chanterelle mushroom show up in the back of the cabin. We haven't been up in the fall for the last two years. The chanterelle patch had really grown. It probably won't work but I also tried unearthing a number of the mushrooms to see if they might grow in our woodland area if I stuck them into the soil with their minuscule bottom parts. It would be fun to have the morels in the spring and the chanterelles in the fall right here at home. Mushrooms for the seasons.

Vanilla leaf (Achlys triphylla), pacific trillium, chanterelle mushrooms ( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

It was good that I was out digging in the garden. Unlike other places where I had planted sweet woodruff, it seems the woodland area it will be a problem. Huge mats had formed for it to take off next spring. It will definitely smoother some plants so will have to be removed. Fortunately there are paths to keep it contained and is very shallow rooted and easy to pull.

All in all the woodland area is coming along. I will rethink my ground covers and maybe try the little yellow violets as a ground cover instead of the sweet woodruff. I haven't had an area I thought they would be successful until now.

( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

Hosta, hellebores, sword ferns, pigsqueak ( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

But then again it appears plants are really filling in and I may need to do some redesigning of beds to accomplish what I want. The fall leaves are beginning to litter the ground and the fir needles have been mulching beds and paths since the last storm shook them from the trees.

I continue to make plans and see the chaos in my garden as I seek a little order. It is not easy to make a man made woodland garden combining natives and ornamentals. It is nature perpetually in motion. Guess that is what makes gardening either an everlasting joy or an unending chore. Maybe a little of both. lol I am certainly addicted to the nature of it.

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Sjoerd wrote on Sat Oct 05, 2013 11:18 pm:

I enjoyed reading this, Jewell. Pity you are selling that lovely little cabin. It and the surroundings look quite attractive.

Those Trilliums that you are digging up--are those red or white?

Jewell wrote on Sun Oct 06, 2013 3:27 am:

We'd probably keep it, but our son doesn't like using it so it will be passed on to another family. The area is lovely.

The trilliums are the natives. They are white. Here is a photo from a plant on the north side of the house
http://www.gardenstew.com/plantstew/garden-image.php?image_id=2921&user_id=5463

Netty wrote on Sun Oct 06, 2013 1:43 pm:

Lovely post Jewell. Your garden is looking very nice. I have had luck at work transplanting Trillium's by keeping a HUGE rootball. I like your cabin in the the forest. It makes me wonder what kind of wildlife lurks in that forest?

Mrs. Galeassi wrote on Mon Oct 07, 2013 4:22 pm:

Beautiful cabin! Luv the plants!

Jewell wrote on Mon Oct 07, 2013 6:22 pm:

Netty, getting seedlings is pretty easy. The problem is the cabin is on glacial till. Pure gravel with a little moss on top since it is in the rainforest.

The wildlife is typical PNW coastal. Black tail deer sleep in our little ravine, lots of little red squirrels and chipmunk types. There are pilated woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, chickadees, juncos, nuthatches, stellar jays and other assorted birds. The most impressive have been the big cats. Have never seen them, but have heard them howling and screaming during mating season as they race around chasing each other. Very impressive.

Thanks Mrs. G. It is fun to be able to transplant regional rainforest plants into our city lot.

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