Garden Under Tamaracks

Colourful, bright, and airy, this partly shady garden is planted under a cluster of beautiful native tamarack trees. Designed and installed between 2023 and 2024, this garden is still a work in progress.

The growing conditions here are complex. It’s broken up into three distinct zones: bright, hot afternoon sun, deep shade with moist soil. and a core zone of part shade and heavy tree root competition. One unique problem to solve was to design a garden that would look unified and whole across these different conditions. The first zone is a dramatic Deschampsia grass matrix, with a large number of native emergent perennials pushing through. The part shade area is designed for maximum impact, pairing lush ‘Blue Zinger’ sedges with ferns, rodgersia, astilbes, and several unusual surprises. Finally, a matrix planting of Carex pensylvanica with more ferns and fall blooming woodland asters brings it all together.