One of my objectives this year was to reduce some of the lawn expanse in the yard. Although I love a nice lawn, some areas were just too large and open. Plus with our recent trend to dry hot summers and problems with japanese beetles it’s getting harder to maintain a lush lawn without too much water, chemicals and work. So my plan became to further build on the woodland garden idea I started in the spring and add some more woodland garden beds. These “gardens” would be mostly trees, shrubs and woodland groundcover perennials that would require less maintenance that my sunny border gardens.

So off I went, tree shopping, and picked out 20 trees. My design here was a little more park-like with more ornamental and unique trees. The majority of trees went in one large bed.
Some of the more interesting trees included Lanx laricina (Larch), Gymnociadus dioicus (Kentucky Coffee Tree), Liriodendron tulipifera (Tulip Tree), Cercidiphyllum japonicum (Clump Katsura Tree), Cornus alternifolia (Pagoda Dogwood), Hamamelis x Westerstede (Witchhazel) and Cercis canadensis (Redbud).

What remains is to remove more of the grass and mulch the bed until I am ready to plant the shrubs and perennials next year.
After clearing a little more brush a new Abies Concolor (Green Fir) looks great tucked in behind the Hawthorn Grove. Just to the right against the rock wall is a Ginkgo biloba.

Three Fagus sylvatica ‘Red Obelisk’ (Beech) were added to break up the lawn to the left. Just left of this is our weeping bed so we can’t plant trees there. Behind these you see the Woodland Garden I put in this spring. To this I added another Picea Glauca (Spruce) to cover the huge wood compost bin my husband built for me this summer.