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Landscaping a wooded area can be tricky for a variety of reasons. For homeowners, conventional landscaping wisdom usually applies to controlled settings like grassy backyards. How can you landscape a space that's already growing wild? These tips will help you take on your landscaping project, so you can personalize the area around your home. 

Install Shade-Lovers

Unless your home was built in a clearing, it's unlikely that the area around your house gets much sun during the day. Unfortunately, direct sunlight is important to many plants. Even if the area around your home is sun-dappled for part of the day, most plants would consider a wooded area to be too shady overall. Installing a full-sun or partial-sun loving plant in your wooded landscape will mean the death of the plant. When picking plants for your landscaping, seek out shade lovers. Hostas and ferns are a natural choice for these settings, because these plants live in wooded areas themselves. 

If looking for shade-loving flowers, consider bleeding hearts, which are famous for their fragile, heart-shaped blossoms that dangle from arching stems. Bleeding hearts come in a variety of colors including pink, white, yellow and red, so you can choose the color that you like best. Another delicate, shade-loving flower is lily of the valley, which features long, sturdy leaves and bell-shaped white flowers. 

If any part of your property is sloped, plant a ground cover to control erosion. In a case like this, the shade-loving foam flower, which produces long spears of star-shaped white flowers and round, sturdy leaves, is an attractive and practical choice. 

Go Native

The forest where your home is located should already be rife with native plants that can easily thrive without any extra watering or fertilizing. When selecting plants for the area around your home, consider those plants that naturally grow in your area. To find out which plants are local to you, stop in at a gardening shop that specializes in native species. 

Add a Little Structure... But Not Too Much

Adding a path and a patio can make your landscape more accessible for you and other members of your household. Still, it's important to preserve the natural, untamed quality of the wooded area. Avoid building structures from permanent materials like concrete. Concrete runs counter to the natural beauty of your backyard. Instead, use natural, biodegradable materials. A mulch-covered path and a wooden patio will be more in keeping with the character of your property. 

For more tips and advice, or to ensure a more professional landscaping job, contact a landscaping contractor like Maddox Garden Center & Landscaping, Inc.