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In 2019, I ripped out three hideously diseased spruce trees and replaced them with prairie and woodland plants in hopes of creating a tiny forest. It took a couple of years to fill in and some failures along the way, but now it’s rocking and has a life all its own. I decided not to plant any shrubs but stick to a diverse palette of trees and perennials. Perennials that didn’t spread and could take a bit of shade. I mulched it with a 4-inch layer of pine bark, no fabric underneath.
The trees are American hophornbeam, serviceberry, and Blackhaw viburnum. Shade and climate change adapted, and relatively small, they are the bones of the garden. Their canopies interlock and support each other. The serviceberry and viburnum flower and fruit. The hornbeam, besides being gorgeous, is host to 91 species of moths and butterflies.
In each corner are clumps of grasses: Standing Ovation bluestem, tufted hairgrass, and prairie dropseed. Along the perimeter are smaller plants: Purrsian Blue catmint, Frosted Fire sedum, Purple Dome aster, Rose Marvel salvia and Hummelo Stachys. In the center are echinacia (purple coneflower), two liatris species (prairie, and meadow), penstemon, and hyssop.
There have been failures along the way. Early on I included a Kentucky coffeetree…that was promptly girdled by rabbits, and a Korean maple that mysteriously died. I tried shrubs like St. John wort, but they got too big. I tried Millenium allium, which was very popular with the bees, until I found little onions all over the garden. Sadly, it too was tossed.
Last spring, when new leaves appeared, they were scorched, distorted and riddled with tiny holes. Turns out it was the work of the Four Lined Plant Bug. These bugs feed by piercing plant tissue and sucking out the cell’s contents. A simple fix of cutting back the garden in the fall, instead of the spring, solved this problem without any insecticides. The insects overwinter on perennial stems.
From a wildlife perspective there's a lot going on. Sometimes I pull up a chair and just watch all the action. Most everything is going to provide a fairly high degree of nectar and pollen. The hyssop and catmint bring a decent number of bees. The liatris were drawing in butterflies before they were even in the ground. Additionally, the trees produce fruit for the birds.
There are some design choices I'm unsure of. The penstemon are weak and are probably getting too much shade, and the sedum don’t flower much. The asters have to be caged to prevent the bunnies from taking them to the ground. What to replace them with is the work for another day. My tiny forest garden, like life, is always in flux, never standing still, never done.
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