Hi Dave, Dave here P

I did a residential design for a client on his heavily wooded 7 acre lot...
one area in particular was quite beautiful (the woods encompassed by a very
large circular driveway, about 3/4 of an acre), with stands of white and red
oaks, a lovely huge persimmon, and hundreds of mature native mountain
laurels. There was also tons of poison ivy, greenbriar, wild grape, an old
trash heap, and about a foot of undecomposed leaf litter.

I spent a good 5 hours there planning several pathways through the trees and
laurels into 3 small natually occuring 'rooms'. One was to be a hosta room,
one was a Japanese style moss garden, and the third was a more formal
sitting area with teak benches and tables. Smaller 'weed' trees and trees
that impinged on the flow were tagged for removal, as were a couple of dead
or dying trees and shrubs.

Over 3 days about 15 of my guys tore into the space, pulled out all the
underbrush and unwanted CRAP... we then blew out ALL the dead leaves
(leaving the decomposed layer), shredded them all, and mulched in the newly
demarcated areas for plantings that the winding pathways created. The paths
were lined with the wood chips generated from the dropped trees for a nice
visual difference between the two areas... we filled the space with hundreds
of hosta, ferns, sweet woodruff, golden moneywort... dozens of varieties of
perennials and smaller shrubs all throughout. That fall we planted several
thousand bulbs ranging from snowdrops to fritillaria. The effect was really
very nice, although maintenance issues would include annual leaf blowout to
maintain the crisp look of a woodland garden.

My advice would be to look for the 'bones' of your woods, to see those
elements that you really like and those that have to go, then build upon
that structure in a natural style

Dave

"Dave K." wrote in message
...
We live in a suburb of Minneapolis, and the back 3/4 of our backyard is
heavily wooded with 100+ year-old oaks and elms, lots of smaller trees and
saplings, and lots of underbrush.

Although we really enjoy the nature and the privacy offered by the woods
(which is a big reason we bought the house), we wish we could make it more
usable for us to venture into and for the kids to play in. Now there is a
lot of undergrowth and small trees growing in the forest, which makes it
difficult to walk through without getting snapped in the eye by a branch.
Also, because the underbrush is heavy and thick, mosquitoes are
particularly
bad in this area. Not a lot of light gets through the canopy of old trees,
so we can't plant anything back there except for shade loving plants.

We like doing our own planting and landscaping, so we don't want to hire a
pro. However, we could use some ideas. How do pro landscape designers
typically handle heavily wooded areas? Do they simply create some
transition
trees and shrubs (which we already have) where the lawn meets the forest,
and then leave the forest alone, figuring it can't be improved upon? Or
would a landscape designer typically recommend getting rid of all the wild
underbrush and smaller trees (i.e., those with a trunk that's less than 6
inches in diameter) to make it more accessible, and then planting
shade-loving plants, like hostas in strategic places?

We'd hate to cut down healthy small trees, but I'm not sure there's a way
around it (most of our small trees are tall and thin and too big to
transplant).

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, especially from those people who
have made their wooded yards more usable or hired landscape designers to
do
the same!

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