IF YOU GO DOWN IN THE WOODS TODAY, YOU’RE IN FOR A BIG SURPRISE. My newly bought house was located at the widest part of a triangular acre and a half of bulldozed hardpan. From there, the land flowed downhill  to the narrow bottom of the property, where there was a small woods, thick with native trees that blocked the sun.

In my Alice-in-Wonderland state of mind, I imagined different ways to make good use of those woods in keeping with my planned English country garden.  I considered a number of themes, almost convinced myself to have a miniature Stonehenge built– but  then a song came to me. It was an English nursery rhyme, “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”

I loved that song as a child.

Years later, along with my reimagined house and very satisfying English country garden, the deeply shaded scrap of woods had been transformed by baby crabapple trees, giant hostas, viburnum, several varieties of ferns, minor bulbs, masses of trillium and other shade-loving ground cover.
In the deepest corner of the little woods, a talented woodsman had built a rustic pavilion with a peaked roof, fancy woodwork, a generous table and chairs, that have aged in time. And no, I haven’t forgotten the teddy bears.