Woodland restoration

I've done programs about 'creating a native woodland garden' and 'gardening with natives' this week, so I'm thinking about how to manage converting lawns to woodland, or some sort of other interesting habitat.

I took this photo last weekend (it hasn't yet been incorporated into the native woodland presentation), but it's so heartening.  This is a view into the ravine forest behind our small house in the mountains.

ravine forest

All the hard work that my gardening companion has done removing mats of ivy, cutting the bases of vines, rooting out privet, deleting honeysuckle, etc. (and adding understory natives in their place) is now being reflected in a lovely spring view.

It's SO much nicer than the view early on -- filled with invasives and ivy running up the trees.

I've just realized that I didn't post any of these early photos (uh, why would I?)  I include them in some of my presentations, so maybe they'd be interesting to include as a blog post, too.