The Birch Walk

Garden Rooms at Havenwood, November 2023

The Birch Walk in our front yard at Havenwood

“White wings are for ever happy, symbols of escape and ascent, of peace and of joy, and a spot of earth about which they beat is secure of its happiness.”

Elizabeth Goudge, The Bird in the Tree

Easy but daring design

Out of all of our garden spaces, this one might be the easiest to replicate. Easy, but daring all the same. Today I am going to tell you about our Birch Walk and walk you through how you might make your own. All that you need is a lawn. An unused portion of lawn is even better. A space near the edge of the property where you hardly ever go. This is your chance to turn that unused space into a real garden retreat!

Before: 2013 photo of the front corner lawn that would become the Birch Walk

Plan the path

The first step would be to chose where the mown path will go. This you can decide by walking through your space dozens of times. Where do you tend to walk? Where do you need to walk to? Is there a nice view that you would like to see from the path, or maybe a view you would like to conceal by steering people away from it?

Plan the Birch trees

I recommend pulling out some long stakes (perhaps from your tomatoes at the end of the summer) and let these stand in for the Birch trees. You will want the path to weave through the trees, but you will also want to make sure that you can stand 4-6 feet away from the trunk of the Birch at every point in your journey.

Because I used Birch trees with white stems (they also come in rusty and grey colors as well), I decided that this would be a green and white garden. That is not a strict rule, as even Vita¹ suggested that a few off colors of pink or blue help you to see a pure white better. But generally, the flowers here are white as a compliment to all of the green of the leaves, the grass and the hedges.

Once you have the paths and the trees, you have a garden! There is just a decision about the edges of the garden to be made, and of course the list of plants to choose for each season…

The green & white color scheme in the Birch Walk has a restful feel between the pastel colors of the Cottage Garden just to the west, and the warm colors in the Hot Border at the top of the slope to the north.