Planting in The Woodland Border

At the bottom of my garden is a raised border lined with trees and a few shrubs such as the winter flowering Viburnum 'bodnantense' and the spring flowering Choisya ternata 'sundance'. The soil tends to be rather dry here so I need to think carefully about what to plant. At the front of this miniature woodland border, trailing over the dry stone wall, I have planted aubrietia, arabis and saponaria which I wrote about in a previous post.

The border also has spring bulbs such as daffodils, bluebells and hyacinths together with spring flowering plants such as pulmonaria (lungwort) and primulas. There are also a few cyclamen hederifolium plants which were given to me by a former work colleague and are thriving under the trees.

Although cyclamen hederifolium originates in the Mediterranean region it is fully hardy in the temperate gardens of Britain. The leaves are a deep green with silvery markings and shaped rather like ivy leaves, hence the name 'hederifolium'. It is a low growing plant (approximately 4 inches in height) and bears shuttlecock shaped flowers in shades of pink. A white flowered form, 'album', is also available. The flowers appear from August to November, the leaves persisting longer throughout the winter and spring months. These plants do well in woodland conditions as they need shade from the hot sun and shelter from the winds. Another variety worth growing is the cyclamen coum which flowers in late winter/early spring. It is similar in appearance and flower colour but is smaller with more rounded leaves.

This autumn I have planted some anemone blanda rhizomes in the woodland border. This is another low growing plant from the Mediterranean region. It grows to about 6 inches high and produces pretty starry flowers in blue, white, pink and mauve. Flowering in spring just after the snowdrops have faded these plants are suitable for naturalising under trees. I just hope they are not as attractive to the squirrels as my crocuses were. I planted about 100 of these a couple of years ago and the squirrels thought Christmas had arrived early and promptly dug them all up! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that these will survive to make a good show in spring.