In a corner of my garden is a group of two apple trees and a once coppiced hazel all overshadowed by a neighbouring hornbeam. Beneath them is a ground covering of plants, developed over years by previous gardeners and lately my attempts to introduce native woodland bulbs, wild garlic, bluebells, snowdrops and wood anemone. It is particularly beautiful through winter and spring and the plants are so happy there that they have spread and live together in happy equilibrium. As a densely shaded border it works very well but although I call this patch my wood, in reality it is nothing like the wild wood where we walk the dog and where I’ve found some real treasures.
On the edges of a managed plantation, there are old hazel coppices, native broadleaf trees, fallen and standing dead wood and open bridleways where the sunlight sweeps in and changes the nature of the space so that unexpected plants have seeded themselves.
Felted leaved Verbascum stand like interlopers at the top of a bank and coltsfoot cluster in the margins of a track behind which swathes of Euphorbia drift from the open sun to the edges of the canopy. Cowslips dot themselves along the paths with lady smock in the damper patches and unfurling ferns are beginning to show through the huge carpets of wild garlic, now studded with shiny white stars taking turns to cover the floor with the sky blue of the bluebells.
Always on the lookout for new and interesting plants, this week’s walk revealed herb paris in flower and toothwort flowers emerging from the base of an old sycamore. Many dog walkers would pass these treasures by without a second glance and perhaps that’s not a bad thing, it’s the lack of human interference which has allowed them to find a safe home, long may that continue in the wild wood.
