Copse – a thicket of small trees or shrubs
Thicket – a dense growth of shrubs or undergrowth
Grove – A small growth of trees without underbrush
Forest – A dense growth of trees, plants and underbrush covering a large area
Pale – An area enclosed by a fence or boundary.
As in… “Within the pale, we began to see the beginnings of a copse, a thicket of plants looking much like a grove initially that will never begin to be large enough to be a forest.”
When fully planted, it will be a destination in the garden with a path through plantings leading to it and a bench nestled within it providing a place to sit and rest and think about definitions of landscape terms like copse or anything else that comes to mind.
Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’
Spiraea japonica ‘Limemound’, recycled from the front landscape.
With these trees and shrubs in place, the largest bed in the garden begins to take shape.
Next up, patio construction.
Find a nice bench for seating in the copse.
Consult with garden designer on additional plantings in the back yard and to layout the path through the copse garden.
Get serious about a gate design for the vegetable garden.
Look for a fountain for the patio.
Watch the night blooming cereus bloom, which really has nothing to do with the garden design, but it does have a great big flower bud on it and I think it should bloom in a week or so.
I am drooling over those bricks.Lots of fun in store!
Oh my, what a lot of work that has been happening around your yard…
Pale was a mew word for me (in the use anyway) So what is that a homonym?
I am in awe of the beautifully crafted sentenced that did require me to reread quite a few of the definitions.
Well, I'm glad you cleared up my confusion about copses and pales, Carol. I'm envisioning your garden turning into one of those famous English estates, perhaps the Sissinghurst of Indiana:)
I am so very impatient. We've been in this house only since March and still I want the trees we just planted 2 weekends ago to already be 15 feet tall!
I like your plan tho. Wonder if I can carve out a spot?
Vikki at http://vikkisverandah.blogspot.com
Coming along nicely, it is.
It's all so exciting. I'm enjoying watching the reformation of your garden. Thanks for the lesson on landscape terms. It's weird how many place names around here have "Grove" as part of their name.
Carol,
That was brilliant!
Dee
Your plan looks so well researched and thought out that I'm sure you'll end up with a beautiful sitting area once everything fills in. It made me think of a restaurant I found a few weeks ago…they had converted an old alleyway into a goregous promenade flanked by climbing ivy on both sides with sitting areas underneath shaded by wrought-iron trellises. Hope to see more businesses go that route in the future!
Yes, I appreciated having all those definitions, too. The 'Autumn Brilliance' is wonderful in spring, too.
I am eager to see your copse as everything else fills in. I love the idea of a little group of small trees with a path and really want one like yours. I can't grow serviceberries or crabapples as we get cedar apple rust here pretty badly. I need to come up with some other small trees for a copse (or grove or thicket or pale!)
I like this post Carol, very education, informative and fun! Can't wait to see the fountain you find for the patio.
Thanks for making me look up copse.
I am enjoying peeping over your virtual fence to see everything that's going on in here!
I'm probably one of the few gardeners to attempt a thicket, to provide shelter for wrens. I deliberately planted some Bursaria spinulosa together, but unfortunately the plant's so leggy that the thicket never really developed properly. Back to the drawing board!