The American Woodland Garden: Capturing the Spirit of the Deciduous Forest - Hardcover

Darke, Rick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0881925454 ISBN 13: 9780881925456

Publisher: Timber Pr, 2002

Synopsis

North America's eastern half, roughly from the Midwest to the Atlantic, was once a great deciduous forest. Although centuries of human intervention have cleared much of the land, the timeless forest remains in the spirit of the place. Today, even the shortest period of human neglect allows for the resurgence of the process of forest creation. The greatest gardens — and happiest gardeners — in this area will be those that take into account the nature of the land.

In his unique, and often thought-provoking new book, award-winning author Darke promotes and stunningly illustrates a garden aesthetic based on the strengths and opportunities of the woodland, including play of light, sound, and scent; seasonal drama; and the architectural interest of woody plants.

While written from a compelling and fresh perspective, The American Woodland Garden never strays from the realistic concerns of the everyday gardener. Information on planting, soils, and maintenance provides a firm foundation for horticultural accomplishment. An alphabetical list of woodland plants offers useful advice for every garden, emphasizing native trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, grasses, sedges, and flowering perennials that fit the forest aesthetic. More than 700 of the author's stunning photographs show both the natural palette of plants in the wild and the effects that can be achieved with them in garden settings. Many of the most striking photos in the book were taken at classic gardens that are paragons of an ecological style.

The American Woodland Garden is a clarion call to a new awareness of our relationship to the natural world. This book will take its rightful place among the classic works that have influenced our concept of the American landscape.

About this title

About the Author

Rick Darke was a member of Longwood Gardens' staff for twenty years, first as assistant taxonomist and then as Curator of Plants.

Reviews

With a fine book on ornamental grasses to his credit, Darke turns to summoning forth the spirit, beauty, and natural order of a woodland in the gardens he creates in its image. Darke defines a "Forest Aesthetic," bringing intensity and passion to his revelations of seasonal rhythms and the lyric qualities of light occurring in deciduous environments. Decades spent studying a Pennsylvania locale, Red Clay Creek, form the basis of a subsequent chapter in which Darke melds an authentic ecological stance with the desire to create a garden sanctuary. Identifying aesthetic elements in the most subtle of manifestations, from a tiny dormant bud to dramatic silhouettes of fallen tree trunks, Darke shares a reverie on nature and observations of an applicable artistry. As responsible stewards of the land, gardeners can look to Darke's unorthodox design manual to transcend trite solutions with a wise and vital philosophy, and with its cache of inspiring photographs, this is sure to inspire all who garden east of the Rocky Mountains. Alice Joyce
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

There is no overstating the grandeur and dignity of the deciduous forest canopy: it is truly awesome. I've always found the top of the woods especially enthralling in mid winter, when trees are completely bare of leaves. Stand still and follow the lines of massive trunks skyward, and you'll observe their graceful splitting into repeatedly finer segments until they become mere threads, barely distinguishable to the naked eye. Then move forward just a step or two, while looking up, and literal millions of angles will shift and change. The canopy is a fabulous study in intricate detail.

Exquisitely displayed in winter's exposed canopy, the signature of a tree is written in its branching patterns and angles. Most trees, including beech, Fagus grandifolia, oaks, Quercus species, and hickories, Carya species, branch in an alternate fashion; others, including ash, Fraxinus species, and maple, Acer species, produce branches in opposite pairs. With a keen eye, these differences can be appreciated from considerable distance. Individual branch angles also vary among different species; for example, the angles of beech are relatively narrow, while those of maples are broad. Dormant trees can also be distinguished by the characteristic lines of their branches. The branches of some, including maples, continue along fairly smooth lines. Others such as black gum, Nyssa sylvatica, and burr oak, Quercus macrocarpa, are noted for their sinuous curves.

Marvelous in detail, the canopy is also visually fascinating in broad perspective: a diverse collection of tree shapes sketched by branches, interrupted occasionally by small patches of open sky. The crowns of canopy trees are shaped by many forces including storms and light competition from other trees; however, they often maintain representative outlines. When growing through the canopy and into the light, the summits of tuliptrees, Liriodendron tulipifera, form distinctive spires. Beeches, under the same conditions, become broad, rounded brushes. Breaks in the canopy set off the outlines of the trees, and the also function as literal windows — the forest's fenestration — through which some sunlight will pass to sustain the understory below.

Photo: Straight as rules and strictly upright, the trunks of three tuliptrees, Liriodendron tulipifera, appear as huge black cylinders, their massive lines accentuated by the delicacy of crossing beech branches, in late March in Delaware.

Edition details

• Publisher: Timber Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0881925454
• ISBN 13: 9780881925456
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 376