When my husband and I began gardening at Swiftbrook, our ambitions had nothing to do with native plants or restoring habitat for wildlife. John envisioned a formal backyard garden with something in flower each day of the year. I wanted a low-maintenance front yard comprised of plants with winter flowers, fruits, or evergreen leaves to brighten dreary cold days.
Our 1.44 acre lot was heavily wooded with Loblolly Pine, Sweet Gum, and Red Maple trees that had established during the decade or so when the land was no longer a tobacco farm but not yet a subdivision. Perhaps to save money, minimal clearing was done when the house was constructed. More than half of the lot was left undisturbed.
This young succession forest was a good setting for the 350 Asian Azaleas planted by our home’s original owners. We first visited the house in April. The yard blazed pink and red out front, while banks of white and lavender lined the backyard. Seeing the possibilities in a woodland setting and lacking a budget to clear or reshape the land, we set about creating the gardens our circumstances would allow.
My first project was removing English Ivy that the previous owners had resorted to for groundcover in the shady and dry front yard. The Ivy was now climbing and endangering trees close to the house. Weeding the Ivy patch quickly taught me it was also a resting place and breeding ground for mosquitos.
As the Ivy removal progressed, I was surprised by a shiny green groundcover populating the newly cleared areas. Tiny white flowers appeared the next spring, followed by bright red berries. John knew the plant as Turkey Berry from childhood walks in the woods with his mother. My native plant book identified it as Mitchella repens, listing several common names including Partridgeberry and Squaw Vine.

It turned out that Partridgeberry wasn’t the only native plant capable of making a comeback after centuries of disturbance. Along the northwest boundary of our yard, we found a large colony of Running Cedar (Diphasiastrum digitatum), a primitive plant that, like ferns, reproduces by spores not flowers. Often growing in deep shade, the rope-like groundcover’s foliage resembles conifers. We weren’t surprised to learn that over-harvesting for Christmas garlands and other uses diminished wild populations of the plant.

Our second or third April at Swiftbrook brought an even greater surprise. Pink Lady’s Slipper Orchids (Cypripedium acaule) bloomed at the base of several trees in the back and front yards. Awed by their large pink flowers , we marked the orchids’ locations with stones and looked forward to their return. Luckily, we made no attempt to relocate them. Later we learned that Pink Lady’s Slippers depend on a particular mycorrhizal fungus to provide nutrients and typically die if transplanted.

In 1996 when Hurricane Fran took down 30 trees in our yard and demolished the back fence, we experienced landscape disturbance firsthand. When rebuilding the fence, John seized the opportunity to push his garden further into the thicket behind. This heavily wooded area was dominated by Japanese Honeysuckle with a fair amount of Poison Ivy mixed in. Long days of pulling followed by copious Calamine lotion led to the discovery of a young American Beech (Fagus grandifolia). This sapling was one of the first signs that our scrubby Loblolly Pine, Sweet Gum, and Maple woodlot could someday transition to a stand of mixed hardwoods.

A chance find at a used book store some years later led me to a new way of thinking about how we might manage the rest of our wooded area. Sara Stein’s book, Noah’s Garden, described the process she went through in “unmaking” her Westchester, New York garden and restoring the property for the wildlife that once thrived there.
Inspired by Stein and buoyed by the “returned natives” we’d discovered in our front and back yards, I proposed to John that we continue removing the Japanese Honeysuckle and rely on Mother Nature to replant the 3/4-acres of abandoned tobacco field that was now our woods. I had a simple, if slow, plan and a great deal left to learn.
Gradually I realized that my soil, degraded by 20th Century chemical farming practices and devoid of life, would be slow to recover. I also learned that natural processes, including periodic fire, aided the transition of old fields to woods and helped generate new growth on fire tolerant shrubs like Wild Blueberries. Without fire or human intervention, invasive species, such as Japanese Honeysuckle and Bradford Pear trees, suppress returning native plants.
Almost 30 years after Hurricane Fran, we’re still working to remove invasive plants from our property. Our reward is the re-establishment of two dozen native species of trees, shrubs, and vines, along with 30 perennials, ferns, and mosses on land still claimed by agriculture 60 years ago. Our joy is the variety of birds, butterflies, and other wildlife that make their homes with us because of these returned native plants.
Each year we introduce these plants to participants in our Inviting Natives Workshop. I also look forward to continuing to share the lessons we’ve learned and the wonders we’ve found at Swiftbrook in future Homegrown Habitat posts.

Your yard is fascinating and beautiful. Wish I lived closer so I could see it more