An Understory Story

Those who have had a chance to read The Living Landscape by Rick Darke and Doug Tallamy, are aware of the importance of layers in a landscape. The book breaks landscape into a essentially 4 layers: Canopy, Understory, Shrubs, and Herbaceous.

Many backyard landscapes have a Canopy (a tree or two) and a Herbaceous layer (your flowers and grass). The current state is that a layer in between the two may be relegated to some evergreen bushes planted up against the house. It's possible to create a more diverse and interesting Understory.

Many plants fit somewhere between the category of Shrub and Understory. Two of our neighbors have large Maples (ie Canopy) along these sides of the yard, we decided to plant an Understory of Eastern Redbud, Pagoda Dogwood, Allegheny Serviceberry, and Highbush Cranberry. Our Understory provides excellent white and pink color in the spring and in a few weeks, we expect to have vibrant fall colors.

Most importantly, our Understory provides cover and food for wildlife. Early in the summer the Serviceberries provide fast food for our Eastern Bluebirds who found competition from American Robins. Now at the end of summer, the Highbush Cranberries are red, the Dogwood and Sumac fruit is ripe. The ripe fruit has brought back our Eastern Bluebirds, attracted a pair of Northern Cardinals, and yesterday a Brown Thrasher came to visit.

This part of our yard is popular with the Eastern Gray Squirrels, the Black Capped Chickadees, Jays, and Thrushes.

Swainsons Thrush visiting in the Spring


Serviceberries in bloom with white flowers.


Highbush Cranberry Viburnum fall color.


Hermit Thrush paying a visit.