Planting the New Woods area of the garden, May 1992
This open field provides a clear view toward the barn (now painted red, but back then it was green), and Prince of Wales Drive. Today you can barely see the barn and the road.
Tree planting - the new woods, oct. 1992
Here the view is eastward to the Ash Woods, the wooded area in the distance. Today this site is a dense woodlot of tall trees.
New Woods, April 2001
By 2001, although the trees planted back in the early 90's were beginning to grow, the area showed no signs of looking like a woodlot with tall trees and a shrub layer. When this photo was taken in 2001, we worried that it was never going to mature. However, we were not being patient. Once the trees were well established, it seemed that they just took off. Within a few more years, photos show this area filling in very nicely. In this photo, the view is southeast, with the Ash Woods off to the distant left, and the Old Field behind the conifers in the middle of the photo.
New Woods, April 2001
By 2007 there was a nice woodlot growing, as can be seen in the following photo.
25 June 2007
New woods in early summer, June 2007
Looking west toward Prince of Wales Drive, from the Amphibian Pond. Here you can see the dense growth of trees compared to the open fields of the photo above.
13 July 2007
The New woods in summer, July 2007
Looking north across the New woods. The Arboretum is beyond this area. In 1992, this was an open field with no trees or shrubs.
The Ash Woods, spring 1991
This photo shows the view south through the woods to Carleton University. Before we took over the site, it was regularly mowed and no understory or groundcover flourished. Today, you cannot see through the woods in summer for the dense understory, and even in winter and early spring, it looks very different from this old shot.
01-OCT-2008
Ash woods, October 2008
Seventeen years after the above photo was taken, the woods are now thick with vegetation. There is a flourishing understory, sub-canopy and ground cover.
The Ash Woods, 1990
We are looking east toward the Rideau Canal here. The semicircle in front of the trees, is in this photo, mowed grass. Today there are walnut trees, Manitoba maples, poplar, viburnums and lots of flowering plants.
North side Ash Woods, spring 1991
This area is now full of trees and shrubs, mostly red-osier dogwoods. However, it took awhile for the thickets to establish, as can be seen from the next photo, taken in 1999.
North side of Ash Woods, spring 1999
This photo was taken eight years after the above, and shows that although the red-osier dogwoods are starting to appear, they have not yet formed the thicket that is there now.
Old Field area - Spring 1991
As you can see, this is the old field before it became the old field! Here, it is still planted with crops. In this view, we are looking west.