Create Your Own Woodland Border

With a single tree and some carefully chosen spring bulbs, shade-lovers and ground cover stalwarts, you can replicate that leafy, ‘layered’ look in any garden, says Louise Curley.

- Louise Curley

THERE is something truly magical about a wood: the unfurling buds, emerging perennials and the carpet of flowers in spring; the cooling dappled shade of summer and the changing leaf colour of autumn. And while most of us don’t have the luxury of our own patch of woodland, it is possible, even in a small space, to capture the essence of one outside your back door.