How to Build a Woodland Wildflower Garden

When Chy and Ray Allen, the original founders of American Meadows, first moved to Vermont, they were delighted to find botanical treasures in their woods. Trilliums, violets, cardinal flowers, and many more lit up the woodland, so they built gravel paths and placed benches to make the woodland more inviting, and added even more plants to the wooded gardens. 

Anyone who has seen America's native woodland wildflowers in bloom in spring knows how magnificent a woodland garden can be. You can create a simliar natural showcase in most shaded gardens!

Building a Woodland Wildflower Garden

• Choosing A Site & Plants For Your Garden
• Patience: The Most Important Ingredient
• Recommended References & Resources

The way these various soil types affect the natural occurrence of Vermont's three common trilliums is a classic illustration. In fact, many trillium species, like lady slippers, are markers for various soils.

Group 1: Early Spring Bloom

These are the first flowers. The bloom is always before leaf-out, and well before the big bloom of most spring flowers. Here are a few examples to represent this group:

• Wildflowers: Hepatica, Marsh Marigold, Bloodroot

Group 2: Mid-Spring Bloom

This will be the glorious climax of bloom for any woodland garden. When tulips and daffodils are bloom in your yard, these flowers will be in bloom in your woodland. Here are a few examples to represent this group:

• Wildflowers: Trilliums, Violets, Solomon Seals, Bellwort, Virginia Bluebells, Wild Anemones, Mayflower, Trout Lilies, Foam Flower, Bishop's Cap, Dutchman's Breeches, Wild Ginger, Spring Beauty

Group 3: Late Spring/Early Summer

This group carries your garden into summer, as your woodland leafs out and becomes shady. Here are a few plants to represent this group:

• Wildflowers: Wild Lilies, Wild Iris (Blue Flag, Crested Iris, etc), Wild Columbine, Meadow Rue

Group 4: Summer/Fall

After your woodland canopy is fully leafed-out, there will be fewer wildflowers to add color to your garden. But plan for the few that do make a big difference. They are taller, larger plants, and all-important for summer/fall highlights.

• Wildflowers: Wild Blue Phlox, Cardinal Flower, Foxglove, Woodland Goldenrods, Tiger Lilies*
• * Naturalized wildflowers common in the US.

Recommended Resources

For identification on hikes and visits to preserves, you'll want at least one of these. Almost every bookstore or website has them. Be sure the one you buy covers your area.

Armitage's Native Plants for American Gardens

by Allen M. Armitage. This is the newest of the group, published by Timber Press in 2006. Allen Armitage is a great garden writer and a true expert. His information is clear and useful.

Growing and Propagating Wildflowers on the US and Canada

by Wm. Cullina of the New England Wildflower Society. This is a large book published by Houghton Mifflin in 2000, and is often considered the definitive volume on the subject. Great photography and clear, concise information.

Wildflowers in Your Garden

by Viki Ferreniea, published by Regina Ryan of Random House in 1993. A great book that is unfortunately out of print. Ms. Ferreniea is one of America's leading plant experts, and her book remains one of the best. Excellent writing, and clear how-to for gardeners.

Growing and Propagating Wildflowers

by Harry R. Phillips. This book, published by The University of North Carolina Press in 1985, is often available in paperback and very useful for wild gardeners. It is a result of the great work done with wild flora in North Carolina. Edited by well-known experts there, C. Ritchie Bell and Ken Moore. Highly recommended.

Choosing the site: water, old roots, pathways, and more

Let nature be your guide. Don't try to create a whole new environment; again, go with what you have. Maybe there is a shaded spot at the back of your lawn. Maybe you have a rich woodland spot where there are already some wildflowers. All wooded areas have their prime spots, often a low spot, or beside a brook, or a slight hillside.

Choose a spot where your wildflowers will show off well, and you and your friends and family can enjoy them. And most important, if you don't have water in the woods (a pond or brook), be sure you can get your garden hose or sprinklers to the area for watering.

You'll want to create or improve pathways through the garden, and maybe install a bench in a favorite spot. Maybe your project includes putting a pathway from the lawn into the trees to your garden spot. In any case, when you create pathways, top them with clean gravel, and if the soil is muddy, build it up so the path stays dry. If possible, make all pathways wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

If you have water, or at least a spot that is always very moist in spring, you're in luck. This wet area can be a centerpiece spot for your woodland garden. Of course, if you have a brook or pond, that suggests certain flowers you'll really enjoy. And you may want to create a pond in a low spot.

Most all woods have places that are wet or even flood in spring. If the water drains away by June or so, this may be a prime spot for many of your wildflower plants. Trillium, for example, love to grow on hillocks in very wet spaces. Water may be all around during spring, but the raised spots there, out of the actual water, make great sites for trilliums.Cardinal flower and Irises like Blue Flag, conversely, will be very happy right in the wet spots. They'll grow right in shallow brooks, and love other spots that stay muddy all summer.

Once you've chosen the site, there will probably be some plants there you'll want to remove—unimportant young tree saplings, for example. This brings us to the usually solid mat of old roots that are present in most woodland. When you begin your garden, get out your pick and shovel, and be sure to remove enough unwanted root mass to give your incoming plants plenty of good free soil in which to grow. This can be a lot of work, but it's all important…young, new plants cannot compete with a mass of old roots that have been there for years.