Suburban woodland garden, Stillorgan, Co Dublin

This garden is at the rear of a 1970s house in a quiet corner of Stillorgan. When the house was extensively refurbished, the owners took the opportunity to completely redo the garden. Only a few key plants, such as a mature Cedar and Yew, were retained. Our aim was to create a quiet haven for the owners, a 'glorified woodland' with a peaceful atmosphere and an ever-changing sequence of interest from plants: ferns, grasses, perennials, bulbs, as well as trees and shrubs.

The photos below chart how the garden has developed over the course of one year.

First visit: a building site with rubble and other debris.

Serious compaction to the soil had to be remedied. Rather than removing rubble from the site, it was redeployed as an underlay for informal gravel paths. Sludge from an existing pond was used as organic matter in beds.

Just after planting

Most of the work in this garden involved good preparation of the soil. Levels were adjusted, rubble and other debris was buried or removed, and all compacted areas were rotovated or forked over. After planting, a layer of manure and bark was applied to the top surface of the soil.

The first spring after planting. Plants need to fill in, but already some bulbs are showing.

A few weeks later, grasses and ferns are starting to fill out. The aim was to create a 'super-charged' woodland, full of ferns, mat-forming grasses, bulbs and flowering perennials. It wasn't intended to be strictly native, but it was intended to look natural in the more stylistic sense of the word. There are no formal edges to paths, and planting is brought right up to windows (excluding a six inch band of gravel for drainage and to prevent dampness against the house).

Plants continue to fill in (still in the first year after planting)

The master bedroom  of the house, and all other bedrooms, look into this calm, natural space. This is not a 'high maintenance' garden, but it is a high skill garden to maintain, requiring two to threedays a year where it is cut back, divided and tidied as necessary. A top-dressing of garden compost, bark mulch or Gee-Up in the winter will also keep the plants in good heath.

The leaves and flowers of Dicentra spectabilis (Bleeding heart, left), in amongst ferns and with Corydalis flexuousa in the background.  These are ideal plants for dappled shade and soil that is rich in organicmatter (there is a mature cedar above which sheds a steady stream of small needles, always adding matter to the soil. These plans can also cope with dryness.

Corydalis flexuousa (right) has wonderful pale blue flowers in spring and early summer, and spreads to form small clumps.

In all our design plans we always want the plants to 'knit together', continuously providing interesting colour, texture or scent.

PLANT LIST

1 Cornus capitata (by bench)
2 Sarcococca
1 Echium
11 Asplenium scolopendrium 'Cristrata' (fern)
11 Dryopteris erythrosera (fern)
22 Matteuccia sruthopteris (fern)
11 Onocloa sensibilis (sensitive fern)
33 Polystichum 'Herrenhausen' (fern)
16 Aconitum 'Bressingham `spire' (Monkshood)
8 Dicentra spectabilis (Bleeding Heart)
6 Epimedium 'Roseum'
6 Hosta 'Francee'
6 Hosta 'Hadspen Blue'
6 Hosta sieboliana 'Elegans'
3 Rodgersia 'Herkules'
6 Zantedeschia 'Snowwhite' (Calla lily)
20 Corydalis flexuosa
12 Aquilegia 'Cameo White'
24 Cyclamen hederifolium
12 Primula viailii
8 Crocosmia 'Star of the East'
1 Rheum
16 Schizostylus coccinea  (Kafir lily)
1 Eucalyptus
1 S. African rush  (pondside)
Bulbs (Crocus, English bluebell, Narcissus, Hyacinth, Leucojum)
2 x Acer
2 x Daphne
1 Viburnum carlessii
I Rhododendron macabeanum
1Rhododendron 'Alice Fitzwilliam'
1 Choisya ternata
1 Myrtus luma
1 Magnolia stellata
1 Osmanthus delavayii
1 Euonymus alatus
1 Sambucus 'Black Lace'
40 Luzula nivea
40 Luzula sylvatica
40 Polystichum setiferum
25 Woodwardia
6 Harts tongue fern
4 Varieagated ivy
17 Polystichum rigens
3 Digitalis
6 Helleborus argutifolius
11 Pachysandra terminalis
1 Euphorbia 'Fireglow'