I've five acres to work with. It's all new to me and has a very wet bottom corner near the road where many walk and cycle on weekends. My desire is to provide an area for those weekend walkers that has some interest and is most appealing for children. Because of the high moisture content of the soil I'm not sure what , if anything, will work there. Any thoughts? el
Probably same things used in local wetland restoration plantings. Here I would start with our Dept. of Wildlife if I didn't know of nearby projects.
Hi elle, Ron and Daniel, We seem to be jumping right into this design challenge thread. It's great - I always want to see your contributions. Here's a gem I just dicovered- maybe you've already got one, but elle this could serve you well in the saga of the five acre planting plan. :o) I bought a book called The Pacific Northwest Gardener's Book of Lists . The Best $27 I've spent in a while. It has more varieties of lists and great references, I always have lists around my drafting board of "the best plants for.... (whatever) Now I can take them down, and use them as bookmarks! There's trees, shrubs groundcovers, and more with all the soggy suggestions you need for your week-end visitors. If you can't locate this book, I'll be happy to rattle off some candidates from mine. Cheers, Anne
I agree with Anne - its great to think about other's design challenges, even as we consider our own. As we have begun to develop our plot of land (little by little) the thing that has become obvious to us over time is the importance of maintenance issues. Its very easy, when first starting out with one's initial enthusiasm, to overlook how hard it may be to keep up what, at first glance, is a thing of beauty. What I have found works for me is going native / and or natural - in outer areas, plant things that, more or less, can take care of themselves. Closer to the house we can plant things that may require more care. The main thing is to think long-term.
In local suburban and rural areas a serious limitation is feeding by deer and rabbits. If you have either of those protective fencing will have to be part of the procedure, unless new plantings are more of what is already growing right there (or plants neither eats are chosen--whatever those might be).
I suppose we never did get into the type of plantings you had in mind for the area. Are you needing to do something large scale? Some of the first plants that came to mind as I was flipping my book open was douglas spirea and grey's rush. Certainly native things should be considered as they need the least amount of adapting, I'm always reluctant to trim and fuss with native plantings but I have a tidy clean cut symphorocarpus hedge and a rather humble 6 ft 'bonsai' cornus stolonifera. Who knew they'd look so formal with such little work. What kind of space do you want down there?
