Product Description

Woodland plants add magic to any garden, with lush carpets of color, foliage at the middle level, and majestic height. Contrary to myth, large spaces and special soil are not required. Drawing on her own experience running a thriving woodland nursery, the author provides seasoned advice on the unique challenges of woodland gardening, including managing light levels, choosing the right plant for the right place, and achieving the well-balanced soil structure that is often key to growing a variety of woodland plants. Extensive planting suggestions will endow gardeners at all levels of experience with the confidence to experiment, and the extensive plant directory will inspire all gardeners to bring woodland plants into the garden for year-round pleasure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #786589 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

From Booklist
For those who live in the woods, landscaping can be a matter of not being able to see the forest for the trees. With proper guidance, what at first may appear to be a haphazard mass of competitive plant material can be transformed into a serendipitous Eden with beguiling carpets of textured ground covers and blazing perennials softened with statuesque shrubs, all under the sheltering protection of stately trees. Nor does one need to live in the deep forest to attain a woodland utopia. Gardeners working with a small shaded area can benefit from Junker's sweeping exploration. With more than 350 color photos, detailed information regarding cultural essentials, and an exhaustive plant directory listing more than 2,000 suitable plants, Junker's is an authoritative and encyclopedic guide to the spectacular variety and beauty of woodland plants. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Karan Junker has been growing and propagating woodland plants for more than twenty years. With her husband, she owns and runs Junker's Nursery in Somerset, England, specializing in lesser-known trees and shrubs, many of which adapt well to woodland cultivation. Her articles have appeared in Gardens Illustrated and The Garden, among other leading magazines and newspapers.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Design Ideas Combined with Plant Profiles and Photographs: Check with Your Nursery for Local Versions That Winter Well
If you live in Somerset, England, this book will be an irreplaceable guide to improving your woodland . . . or creating one from scratch. Ms. Junker is from Somerset, and her perspective is heavily dependent on those growing conditions. If you live someplace that's much colder, you'll need to check on the plants that interest you to see if they survive the winters in your area. To help with that, Ms. Junker provides a list of places where you can see woodland plants in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as nurseries that have display gardens to demonstrate woodland plant concepts. The gardens and nurseries may not be right next door, but I'm sure you'll enjoy the trip.

The book opens with Ms. Junker's concepts for a woodland garden, taking it from the perspective of not having a tree canopy through to already having one. She favors thinking of your woodland garden in three layers: the canopy of tall trees, intermediate plants (like rhododendrons), and flowering plants that will do well on the woodland floor (especially bulbs and ferns). She talks helpfully about how to deal with spaces of all sizes and degrees of being wooded.

I found the book very helpful since our property is heavily wooded with many intermediate layer flowering plants. But we haven't done much with the ground layer, so the book's ideas were intriguing to me. In addition, she drew my attention to ornamental tall and intermediate trees and plants that could provide some interesting variety in our woodland.

To me, the photographs helped the most. I could identify flowering plants by name that I've seen do well in our area. Combined with her information, I have the basis for many interesting experiments.

The book's main drawback is that plant directory (the bulk of the book) is not as fully illustrated as I would have liked. I suspect that the solution is to look up the formal botanical names on the Internet to find photographs that illustrate what's being described.

Ms. Junker has obviously forgotten more about woodland gardens than I'll ever know. It's great to be able to draw on her experience and ideas.

Nice work, Ms. Junker!

Drawbacks
After examining a library copy, I decided not to purchase this title. In addition to the drawbacks noted by another reviewer (British emphasis and sparse photographs), the book lacks zone information and a common name index.

Great Source Book for Shade Garden
This book has full color photo illustrations on almost every page. It is a great companion to my favorite regional shade gardening book "Got Shade" which has relatively few photos. For the price, you are not going to find a book with more photos of plants. Although the author gardens in England, I found most of the information to be transferable. I would say that probably 70-75% of the plants she describes are native to North America.

I will say that I did find the lack of a common names index to be a weakness at first, but common names vary from region to region, and therefore sticking with the latin probably makes this book useful to a broader group of readers.

I checked this book out at the Library before purchasing it, and I have to say that I completely disagree with the earlier reviews.