Wonderful work! I don't have much in the way of design advice, but I do have a couple of possible warnings....

Your volunteer maple looks like a Norway maple. Identify the maple species for absolutely sure. If it is a Norway maple, dig it out now. If it gets large enough to flower and set seed, you will have billions and billions of same.

Ditto your volunteer cherry, for the same reason. Couldn't id it well enough from the picture, but from what I could see, it is likely one of the really weedy cherries, rather than one of the more desirable ones.

You're working so hard on this woodland area. I would hate to let you nurture 'weeds' without throwing out a warning. I have also welcomed many volunteers, most of which have been truly welcome.

But I've also been excited by 'it's some kind of [whatever]', and later learning that, well, there are good 'whatevers' but also really weedy unwelcome 'whatevers' that I then have to go to war with for some years....

Oh boy. Thank you for pointing that out. I'll be sure to check on the maple volunteers this week when a certified tree man is here. There are 2 huge Norway Maples across the street. So what you suggest is very possible.

Ditto the cherry tree saplings. There are loads of them. I'll try to get a better ID on those. The tree man has identified one mature wild sweet cherry (no cherries though). Wild black cherry is everywhere.

There just is not much in the way of large nice trees. I think our intent is to pull the woodland down from the top of the hill to the hillside - over time. The trick is to keep it under control year to year.

We will start this fall with 10 hemlock and 10 maxima rhodo to begin the background planting and screening. I don't want solid screening though. Where it is possible I'd like some depth of view into the adjacent woods.

This part of the yard has been a nightmare. Poison ivy in particular. It pulls easily but the roots are nearly a solid mass under the surface in many area. Multiple big root stalks running 50' up the black cherry, etc. It's nearly gone now, and I'll follow up next year with RoundUp on any that comes back.

Thanks very much for the heads up re my found treasures. I'll be sure to inquire further whether they are in fact treasures or merely more junk.

ML

Great yard! It's always nice to find surpise plants! A few weeks ago I found a shagbark hickory sapling. I agree with Linda about the maple. The way I check to see if it is a norway vs sugar maple it to pluck a leaf and if you see white sap it is norway and if there is clear sap then it is sugar. I'm not sure if that is true but I have found it on multiple sources on google.

TJ

You're doing a great design job. It's going to be terrific over time! The grunge work is the hardest part....

Black cherries can be seed throwers, but at least they are often nice trees. I suspect that the volunteer cherry in the photo (I'm too tired and lazy to hunt up species names tonite) is some sort of 'pin cherry' or 'bird cherry'. Even weedier, and neither much attractive or useful when grown.

Karate, I envy you the shagbark hickory! Really nice tree. I don't know if the 'sap test' works at this time of year. May be a spring thing. But lethean's tree pro will be able to tell from the leaf shape and trunk whether it is a Norway or another maple. He'll have a really good search-image for a Norway maple.....

linda and karate

I have posted on the "name that plant" forum with the title "crabapple or what?" There has been some disagreement as to whether this is a crabapple or a cherry. I just posted a fruit cut in half over there showing more than one seed and also posted a picture showing 2 types of leaves on one branch which is common on all these volunteer trees. Both indications seem to point to crabapple and not cherry.

If these are crabapples, do you think I should keep a few? There are 3 pretty nice young trees with good form. I can pull the saplings each year as they come up.

I guess my question is - are crabapples not a good woodland tree? - and not appropriate for a mixed woodland either? I like native but don't have to be strict about it.

Would I be better off biting the bullet on the crab and getting serviceberry, etc., going? I will need some intermediate understory type trees. Dogwood and eastern redbud come immediately to mind.

Maybe I can postpone the decision and see what the flowers look like next spring on these crabapples? And take it from there?

Thanks a lot.

ML

At this point, I would definitely enjoy the spring time blossoms and decide after that. Crabs and other malus trees put on a wonderful spring time show. I have a large, old crabapple with sprawling limbs that I have a woodland wildflower garden under. The shade and organic material it provides in copious amounts makes a perfect place for a shady, woodland garden.

It appears as though you have plenty of places to add service berries, witch hazel, spicebush, dogwood, and any number of other native understory trees without needing to remove all the crabs. You can always remove them later should you decide you don't like them. They are not huge trees even when fully grown.

FataMorgana

FatamoMorgana

OK then. That makes sense to me.

Two of the volunteer crabapples will need to be moved. One is growing 2' from a good sized planted dogwwod. Another is growing 2' from an established planted viburnum. I think we can pull them both out with a truck -leaving roots in tact. So far things are pulling out pretty easily - excepting the dang pear trees. Monster roots on those.

Do you suppose the crabs can survive a transplant. They are all about 8'. Regardless, the 2 can't stay where they are so I will have to give it a try.

This is so great to have input on this project.

Thank you.

ML

Re the crabs, if you have to move them, try giving them a deep root-cut right now, [abt 8 ft tall.... thinking], about 2 1/2 to 3 feet away from the trunk. There's still time while the weather is still pretty good.

In late April, give them another root cut, just a little closer in to the trunk.

Should have a better chance of moving them successfully in may/early June.

More changes this week and last. Wow. The landscaper came in and planted the background. Hemlocks, Maxima rhodos, Green Mountain Maples, various viburnums (Alleghenys, Chicago Lusters, Blue Muffin, Winterthurs), chokeberries, beautyberries (American?, I hope), dogwoods, and redbuds (transplanted).

The big FUN news? There was a rain at night during the planting time. And guess what? Deer tracks were found in the wet dirt. Wow. I've seen one deer here in 21 years! ... and one fox. Finding the deer tracks? ... I can't help it. I'm excited and thrilled. How in the world can they survive in suburbia? Amazing.

I had been thinking of a pondless water stream on the hillside for several years. Plans were drawn up, twice. This past summer? ... like an omen? ... a pair of mallards visited the backyard, for weeks. I had never seen them here before.

Well, when the background planting was finished today on the woodland right side of the house and on the top of the woodland hillside and continuing to the rear of the property? It just seemed like a poor time to stop. The hillside itself is still bare (volunteer Austrian and Scotch have been scuttled).

Bottom line? We are going to keep going on this project. This is off season in the nursery business. That's a benefit to me as regards cost and the designers attention, I hope.

What a rough business, landscaping. With seasonal laborers, that I like a lot ... So, I am stimulating the local economy while hopefully getting a little additional bang for the buck. The decision feels really great after vacillating about it for several years.

More work should begin in about a week, depending on when the sandstone can be quarried.

I'll post pics of what has transpired to date, i.e., the background planting. Pretty neat.

And I can't help but wonder if the mallards will find us again next spring? And the deer? ... I'll happily feed them (or, IT) my new plant material. Ha.

Anyway, we are now officially ... a WORK IN PROGRESS. Sort of exciting ....

ML

Dont feed the deer. If you do they will stay and all your neighbors with flowers and shrubs will hate you.dear will forage and come back enough. If fed they will over populate. I have had to shoot many in the last 10 years trying to establish an orchard. that is in combination with deerbgone and electric fence. some of the neighbors feed so at least the ones I shoot are good and fat.

Hey lethean46, sorry I hadn't seen this post before. Nice work so far, but it seems you want to use hemlocks everywhere you want to block a view. I'd caution against that even though I love hemlocks (I'm a junkie, you know). Throw in some Picea omorica or Picea orientalis 'Aureospicata' or even an Abies koreana or concolor just to diversify. That way if a disease or pest (Hemlock Wooly Adelgid is not far away) that kills hemlocks comes along you wont lose all your trees.

tj

Here is a link that might be useful: Wooly Adelgid Spread

Hi Lethean,

Your pictures look fantastic; it's a joy to imagine fooling around with different designs in your yard. No wonder you're enjoying yourself working on your yard!

Everyone has different ideas as to what is junk and what isn't, so you might want to just get a feel for what you like to see day by day and ignore the labels of others. But I'll give you mine, for whatever it's worth.

Native black cherries are most unwelcome here. Our woodsy yard is filled with them, and every year we take out as many as we can. They don't display anything attractive once they're filled with pest cobwebs, which they almost always are. All those cobby webs spoil any possibility the tree might ever have for attractiveness, which isn't much. To call them junk is putting it mildly.

We have a large variety of hardwood trees, most of which are attractive, but have worked to get rid of the shagbark hickories. They're quite nice trees until you want to grow other things anywhere in the vicinity of their canopy. There's a substance that the roots of nut trees, including hickory trees, exude that make it hard for other plants to compete for life in the same soil. You'd be much better off with oak trees, ash trees, maple trees, birch trees, sycamore trees... anything but nut trees if you want to have good luck with things like rhododendrons. There are many different varieties of rhododendrons you might consider.

If you can purchase some fast-growing hardwood trees that can get tall, consider red maple trees. They are gorgeous in the fall, and their coloring looks good with sugar maples and also oak trees, especially red oaks.

For an understory, dogwoods need some watering to get through a severe drought but the horizontal lines of the branches are something very, very special. For the slightly sunnier areas of the border areas, river birches would have the shagbark textured bark that you like and would look spectacular.

Unless you want only native plants, you might see which Japanese maples are hardy enough for your area. Those are beautiful, beautiful trees that you'll never tire of looking at; we have three different kinds at three different heights. They are the last trees to lose their leaves in the fall and the first to get new leaves in the spring.

Best wishes,
Mary

Thanks for the comments this past winter. I didn't see them.

Well ... the project looks a lot different now. A 60' pondless water stream is on the hillside with several terraces build with sandstone. It is about 90% complete.

Trees went in as the terraces were built. It was the easiest way. The trees are a nice red oak, a couple of green mountain maple, a red maple, 3 serviceberries, and several cloud 9 dogwoods. There are no shrubs, perennials, or groundcover yet.

At this point, I need to call the landscaper to come in and finish up. Reinstall the pump, finish the with the sandstone work, and repair the yard. From there on out I'm going to try to do my own plantings, over time.

I'll try to post some pics of this work in progress. Right now? I don't know what to think. Dumb idea to do it at all? Maybe I had a brain fart.

I cannot quibble with the work the landscaper did. I KNOW that they gave me the best job that they could do. And so, what more can you ask than that? My "job" that I self imposed was to stay out of their way. Ya know?

I know that they were very pleased with the result. They said that each pondless stream project takes on a personality of its own. They like this project a LOT.

I plan to use local nurseries, rare find nursery (online), saved volunteers, ground layer propogation, and starts from friends going forward.

Oh. And the white pine volunteers? turns out they were red pine. Also a native pine. Who knew? We moved it into the woods on the neighbors property. The rest were lost. So, I'll be looking for more red pine volunteers.

I thought we had destroyed a very little stand of jack in the pulpits. I couldn't find them in the fall to save them. And low and behold, I saw one a few yards away today. Yeah.

I will try to post some pics soon. I've forgotten exactly how to do that now. But I'll figure that out or make a phone call.

Re all the hemlock? Yes. There are about 15 in the background planting. To diversify? I could use some more white pine or red pine if more are needed. I'd really like to stick with natives re pines.

Re black cherries. Yes. I know that they are not desirable trees. Many have been removed over the years as well as many other junk trees. The black cherry at the top of the hill though? almost has to stay. At least, it's away from the house. And, it's mature with a decent trunk and shape.

ML

When you get around to shrubs, some mountain laurels and witch hazels would look good. Maybe some redbuds too.