THERE’S POWER in numbers. That’s what the horticulture team at Stoneleigh, the historic estate turned native-focused public garden in Villanova, Pa., seems to be demonstrating time and again with its highly creative approach to using woody plants.

Yes, planting a sumac or a viburnum shrub will attract hungry birds in fall. But what if you combined 10 carefully selected species of fruiting shrubs into swaths of songbird thickets, as Stoneleigh  has been doing, offering not just a fall feast here and there, but cover and nesting habitat, too?

Elsewhere, hedges and trees are paired with vines to up the beauty and the diversity within their shared footprint—and certain shrubs are planted not one to a hole but as strategically designed clump plantings, with three closely related bare-root specimens positioned together to grow into one mass that shows off all of their slightly different features.

Stoneleigh’s director, Ethan Kauffman, and I talked about songbird thickets and clump plantings and other imaginative ways the gardeners there are using native trees, shrubs and vines and that we can, too.

Stoneleigh opened its gates in May 2018 as a project of the nonprofit conservation organization called Natural Lands. Rather than being daunted by the natives-only ethos they were given, and how to apply that to the formal bones of a grand old estate, Ethan and the garden team have experimented and innovated to great effect, reinventing the plant palette, and using woody plants in particular in wonderfully unexpected ways, all while making a space that celebrates and supports nature and welcomes visitors with its beauty. (Above: Lonicera sempervirens ‘Flint Hill’ and Halesia diptera; photo by Dave Korbonits.)

Read along as you listen to the Oct. 19, 2026 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

ethan kauffman on the creative use of woody plants

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Margaret: I think about you a lot because sometimes I see the name of a plant and I remember, oh, you’re using it, but the way you’re using it is so interesting [laughter]. Because I see something a little bit familiar, but again, your way—the word unique, I always hate to use it, but you kind of have invented some pretty unique ways of using things. So I want to talk about some of that today.

But first just to set the scene, your original sort of canvas is a 42-acre former private estate loaded with formality. I believe a lot of it was designed by the famed Olmsted brothers in the first half of the 20th century. And then your mandate from the nonprofit Natural Lands was to go native. So just sort of tell us [laughter]: That’s the starting point, yes? And now I think you have an additional tract of land as well that you’re pondering, joining to it.

Ethan: Yeah, it’s been so much fun. This 42-acre property, when we came here, it was already gorgeous. There were these huge trees and we saw all the possibilities that we’re now expanding upon in the garden. It was pretty formal, but also pretty lacking in diversity and not a lot of native plants. So we have this really exciting opportunity. And as you said, we now have 10 additional acres that are right next door that we’re now adding into the garden itself, or in the process of.

Margaret: So formal gardens, especially of that era, the early half of the 20th century, relied on hedges and espaliers and all kinds of architectural-almost elements, elements that woody plants can be used to create. And right from the start, you have been so inventive, so imaginative, with your use of woody plants. So I wanted to hear first about the songbird thickets because I just love the idea of what you’ve been doing.

I mean, I created big masses of bird-attracting fruiting shrubs early on, but I didn’t get to 10-species diversity like you have [laughter]. I picked three things and I got 15 of one and five of another and six of another or something. I didn’t quite go as far, so I’m so interested to hear that.

Ethan: Well, yeah, you know how it is with plants, it’s really easy to get carried away [laughter].

Margaret: No, really?

Ethan: Yeah, but it’s so fun. It started because we had this legacy Forsythia, huge mass planting on this really long view, and it was great and it would flower. It was actually pretty nice for the birds. It was kind of a thicket in itself, but we thought, you know what? We’re Stoneleigh and we’re doing all these things with native plants, so why not try something a little bit different that might be a little more beneficial for our birds? And we came up with songbird thicket.

Margaret: And so how did you go about figuring out what would go in it? I mean, I can name a bunch of bird plants that fruit, shrubs that fruit especially, and so forth. And P.S., in order to fruit, they would’ve supported the pollinators earlier on during their flowering season. So they have multiple benefits ecologically. But how did you figure out what would look good together? I mean, these are big tracts or big expanses, I assume, aren’t they?

Ethan: They’re pretty big swaths, yeah. So it was definitely thinking about what the birds are going to eat and what they’ll like. But also we think we have to remember that gardens have to be really pleasing for us, too. And so how do these textures combine? How do the forms and habits combine to make something that’s pleasing? We think it’s all going to grow together at some point, but we did want to start off with a real design intent. [Above, songbird thicket; photo by Dave Korbonits.]

Margaret: So what do you take into consideration? Is it the attributes like leaf texture and fall color and the flowering, all the different things, the ornamental aspects? I mean, what did you end up putting together [laughter]?

Ethan: Yeah, we thought a lot about that. And also it was kind of influenced by what we have in our nursery. So a lot of these plants that we used, I think all but one of the varieties were from wild-collected origin that we grew out in the nursery. So we had 50 of these silky dogwoods [Cornus amomum] in the nursery, and they were perfect. And I have a real soft spot: Do you know Aralia spinosa, the devil’s walking stick?

Margaret: It’s so funny that you ask about that because I think I’m the only person I know who grows it and I’ve had it for over 30 years. I have an entire sort of grove of it because it does sucker or whatever; spread. A gardener in the Berkshires of Massachusetts adjacent to me had it at the estate he was managing and he said, “Oh, I want to bring some to you for that new garden you’re making.” And we planted one or two or whatever. And yeah, I’ve had it ever since. It’s got the best fall color of anything. It’s incredible. And all the thrush relatives, all the birds that are thrush relatives, just come and gobble up. Flocks of them just come and gobble it up.

Ethan: I can see we’re kindred spirits. Yeah.

Margaret: They call it the devil’s walking stick because the trunks and the branches are spiny. They’re very woody and spiny; sharp. Yeah?

Ethan: Yes. And a great pollinator plant, too. And so sometimes our preferences in the garden are driven by what we like, too. And so I love that plant, and it’s going to sucker and really create great habitat, too.

Margaret: Yeah. So that’s one and that’s not one that people really think about. It’s not technically native where I am. I pushed it, you know what I mean? I mean, it’s plenty hardy. Its native range is probably not this far north toward New England, but yeah, oh, it’s gorgeous. It’s just a gorgeous plant.

Ethan: It is. Another one we use that I really like is a sumac, winged sumac [Rhus copallinum]. And this thing suckers a lot, but it’s so beautiful. I love it. It has really kind of delicate foliage. And we used a cultivar called ‘Lanham’s Purple.’ So late in the season it gets really deep purple foliage and then it turns kind of a fiery orange. It’s a really kind of astounding transition in the fall.

Margaret: The sumacs are just, I mean, they’re just such gorgeous… I mean every single one is gorgeous in the fall in its own way, so that’s one that you get a lot of purple, huh?

Ethan: Yeah, and I agree. They’re one of the best fall foliage plants that we have. I think they’re awesome.

Margaret: Yeah. So that’s another one in the group. And then other things that sort of stand out that you chose?

Ethan: We have some Clethra. Again, these were gallon plants. We just happened to have 30 or 40 in the nursery that we had collected seed from in one of our nature preserves. And a great plant; smells wonderful. We use some by Viburnum, which are really, again, beneficial for their berries and such a versatile shrub, too.

Yeah, I’m telling you, designing is fun, isn’t it? It’s just sort of that creation from going from what was there to something new that’s totally been re-imagined I think is one of the special parts of gardening. I don’t know about you.

Margaret: Yeah. My sort of backbone plants for this when I first started around the edge of my property were these giant beds and they were large numbers of winterberry holly, the Ilex verticillata, and then Aronia and then some elderberry. And then I mixed in other things as well. There was no other with as much consistency, but the Ilex were the thing that I have the most of. And they’re not so gorgeous except when they’re in fall color and fruit. But boy, the birds love them [laughter].

Ethan: Yeah. Talking, as kind of mentioned, you kind of pioneered or one of the people that pioneered this approach early on.

Margaret: Well, all by myself sitting here just liking birds and just wanting to know what they liked. And in those days you just looked it up in field guides and things like that. You know what I mean? It was decades ago [laughter], so it wasn’t… Yeah, but it was fun. It was really fun.

Ethan: Yeah, we’re happy to continue the good work and find new things and again, support the songbirds, which we love.

Margaret: So in these sort of swaths, is it onesies of each plant or is it a sweep or river of one plant and then a river of another… Do you know what I mean? Is it multiples of each one?

Ethan: Yeah, it’s like a sweep. And the horticulturist who manages the songbird thicket is Zack Gillespie, I’m going to give him credit. And Patrick McGinty, our garden manager, they really put their heads together to select things that were most beneficial for the birds and the layout, and they had a really good time with it. And it’s something that our guests see right when they come in. It’s almost immediate when you come into the garden. So it gets a lot of love.

Margaret: Must be gorgeous at this time of year. And then I was fascinated, you’ve told me before, but I was fascinated about these clump plantings because I’ve never put more than one woody plant in a hole at a time [laughter]. I didn’t know, and it’s just so interesting. So tell us a little bit about that because that’s a different thing. That’s not a songbird thicket type of thing, but something else.

Ethan: It’s funny you say that because sometimes you do things because sometimes the clump plantings, we’ll order a bunch of bare-root plants and maybe you had to get a certain minimum amount and all of a sudden we’re left with seven and you think, O.K., what can we do with these seven ‘Slender Silhouette’ sweetgums? And we get the idea, you know what, let’s just put them all together in the same hole and plant them and see what happens. And so now we’ve got this 20-foot tall clump of ‘Slender Silhouette’ sweetgums, and it’s kind of cool.

Margaret: So it was just almost like a dare to yourself. It’s like you just said, “Hey, let’s give it a go,” right? Oh, that’s so interesting.

Ethan: In some aspects. I think a lot of that inspired… I don’t know if it’s inspired, but in gardening, it’s kind of an in-the-moment sort of approach. You think, O.K., here’s an opportunity. Other times with other clump plantings we’ve done we took different varieties of winterberry holly—yellow, orange, and red. That was intentional. We definitely ordered those and put them in the same hole so that we get this, I don’t know, sort of rainbow of holly berries this time of year. But other times it’s sort of a garden by opportunity.

Margaret: That’s cool. And any other examples of things you’ve done in these sort of clump plantings?

Ethan: We’ve done some of the witch-hazels as well, the Ozark witch-hazel, as well as a more common local native witch-hazel, like different flower colors, orange, red, and yellow and purple we’ve done. And you know what’s really interesting about that? When we planted those, we expected the flowers to be different, but with the Ozarks in the fall, the leaf color is different on each cultivar, which is really unexpected and cool, I think. [Above: Hamamelis vernalis clump planting with various flower colors; photo by Dave Korbonits.]

Margaret: And so that’s Hamamelis vernalis, the Ozark witch-hazel. So does it have different colored flowers; do some of them have different color flowers, or just the fall color is different?

Ethan: Both the flowers and the fall color is different.

Margaret: Oh, I didn’t know it came with different flower colors as well. I didn’t know that. Oh, interesting.

Ethan: Yeah, it’s interesting.

Margaret: Wow. And so they just kind of come up from this common space, and so it’s like, wow, it must just be a lot going on [laughter].

Ethan: Yeah. And if you’re doing new things, you don’t always know what to expect. And so one thing we found out with these in particular is that certain cultivars grew much faster than the other ones. So we actually had to prune the fastest-growing one to keep pace with the others. I don’t know, who would think the cultivars grow at different rates, but they do.

Margaret: Well, genetics, right? [Laughter.] Yeah, the magic of genetics. So you’ve done that with the witch-hazels and with the Ilex; with the winterberries. It’s pretty fun. I mean, again, I’ve never thought of doing it. It never occurred to me. And I guess one of the things is I don’t have a lot of bare-root things. I don’t have a lot of experience with that with woody plants like you would. Other examples of some of your creative uses of native woody plants?

Ethan: Yeah. Well, do you know Dr. David Creech down in Texas?

Margaret: By name, but not personally, no.

Ethan: Well, years ago I was talking to him and he’s a big bald cypress guy. And this is another clump planting, by the way. And he said in China, he would go over to China, and they would plant hundreds of these bald cypress along the rivers for erosion control, and they would all kind of grow together, like their bark would fuse. So we though, oh, why don’t we try that? So we did plant five of these dwarf bald cypress together in the same hole, and it hasn’t fused yet, but we’re waiting, and it’s kind of fun, too.

Margaret: So that’s Taxodium distichum, and is that that one that has that funny name like ‘Peve Minaret’ or whatever? [Above: Taxodium distichum ‘Peve Minaret’ clump planting; photo by Dave Korbonits.]

Ethan: That’s it. That’s the one.

Margaret: I don’t know how you pronounce the variety name.

Ethan: That’s how I say it. I don’t know. There might be a better way.

Margaret: And you’ve put multiples of those in the same hole, huh? And how big does it get or how big has it gotten?

Ethan: Well, you know how when you get these plants, it says, “Oh, it’s going to get 8 feet tall.” When that cultivar came out, everybody and everything said it was going to get 6 to 8 feet, but I think specimens are pushing 30, 40 feet almost.

Margaret: Oh my goodness.

Ethan: Yeah.

Margaret: Wow. [Laughter.] And you’ve done a lot of combining sort of things where you’ve made room for vines in a lot of your… Pairing them with a lot of your trees and shrubs, hedges, and so forth, and that’s really enlivened the planting aesthetically, but also made it more diverse and so forth. So I know you’ve done a lot of that. We talked about that a couple of years ago, I think we talked about some of those. Even then, even a couple of years ago when we spoke on the show, I think you had already started using 24 different native vines, and I was like, “I can’t even name 24 different native vines.” [Laughter.] Now, where are you?

Ethan: Back to that it’s easy to get crazy with plants. I think we now have over 120 different native vines at Stoneleigh, so things can get out of hand again pretty quickly.

Margaret: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I mean, literally, I can’t even name half that many, so that’s wild. That’s wild. And so what about that? I mean, the vines…

Ethan: Vines are awesome. They are really misunderstood, I think, but they need support is generally what they need. And so we found that the easiest and the cheapest are just using existing plants, and especially our woody plants. And what you can do is you can pair, say, a pearl honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, with another spring flowering tree like two-wing silverbell, Halesia diptera, and create this really magical moment where both the white flowers are the Halesia, the red flowers of the lines are flowering at the same time, and you get this really grand display. And like I said, it’s really kind of magical. [Photo of Halesia and Lonicera blooming together, top of page.]

Margaret: And so you just make the observations first that inspire these pairings from where you’ve seen the plants in the same location blooming concurrently and you go, “Oh, if I could put those together…” Because you can’t really look it up in a book, I don’t think exactly what’s going to bloom concurrently.

Ethan: It’s a light-bulb moment. It really is. And when I was gardening in the South, another great pairing that I like to use was red maple and Gelsemium sempervirens or Carolina jessamine. And both of those are really early-flowering species, but the red and the yellow are really striking together. And those maples are really great for early pollinators like mining bees and that sort of thing, so double the impact.

Margaret: So you kind of look for, like you say, light-bulb moments for the inspiration and then deliberately, you get the right plants and deliberately make these pairings.

Ethan: That’s what we do. You can also—again, and I don’t know about you, but one of the things I love, I just love watching plants and observing, and you kind of make these mental notes. O.K., this is happening at the same time this is happening, or after. And so one thing we’ve done, too, we’ve taken another honeysuckle called yellow honeysuckle [Lonicera flava], it’s an Eastern variety, and paired it with a dwarf redbud [Cercis canadensis]. And by doing that, you get this redbud that flowers, for us anyway, for two weeks at the end of April, and then right as that’s winding down, you get these brilliant yellow flowers of the honeysuckle that take over, and you can get four to five weeks of flower-power in this one space by combining these two plants.

Margaret: Yeah. Again, you’re making me think of so many things that I could do in spaces I already have something growing that is going to be like the armature, so to speak. I could double my pleasure and also the pleasure of the hummingbirds or the animals that I know that love the particular plants by bringing that partner in there and training it up the support.

Ethan: If you’re just starting to do that, if somebody’s just sort of beginning to use some of these native vines, clematis are really some of the easiest and best because they’re not as aggressive. They grow in nature—that’s how they grow—is through shrubs. So they’re great to put on almost anything to have that support, and then you get these really beautiful flowers, I think. They’re really delicate.

Margaret: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about, and I think we may have talked a little bit about this a few years ago, but it’s such an interesting topic, the idea of… I know that you make mixed hedges out of different plants, not these monochrome/monotone sort of hedges that are the more common situation. Any of those that have really, that you feel like, wow, that was a victory, that one’s really a good one, that mixture? [Above: Wildlife hedge; photo by Sam Nestory.]

Ethan: It’s really fun, and it’s kind of exciting to do that. So much of gardening is that personal expression, that sort of creativity, and mixed hedges not only fulfill, they meet that sort of need, that itch you want to scratch. But also, again, we’re creating these dynamic visual hedges, but also it’s beneficial to a broader range of wildlife, more disease-resilient. And some of the best, I think, Viburnum dentatum, arrowwood is a really good one. Of course, all the Arborvitae are good.

A lot of the magnolias, like Magnolia virginia, Southern magnolia, is also really good for us down here. Yeah, even Taxodium, our bald cypress, has worked well. Of course, things like hop hornbean [Ostrya virginiaia], ironwood, are natural sort of hedge candidates, so they’ve worked really well, and have fall color.

And we can’t forget about our vines because we throw those in there as well. They’re in some of our mixed hedges and the clematis and honeysuckle are ones we’ve used well.

Margaret: So real quick, I know when we spoke the other day, you mentioned to me that sometimes you try to find a home for, I mean, consciously try to find a home for, “overlooked or underappreciated native plants” is what you call them, to turn into hedges. And you named one, Baccharis, which I know is sort of a thing from the seashore, I think, environment more, Baccharis halimifolia, and I don’t even know a common name for it, but just give us a couple of those examples real quick.

Ethan: Yeah, I think those are the kind of plants people might zoom by on I-95 and not think twice about, but Baccharis is a good one. It makes a really great hedge. I think if you can just look at these plants and see them in a different light, we’ve been told for so long that native plants are meant for informal areas or they’re meant for erosion control, but really we need to think about using them for every aspect of our landscape, if we would embrace this sort of ecological gardening and supporting our wildlife. So those are really good.

We use vines that, again, in the south, there’s a thing called peppervine. People think it’s kind of a trash plant if they think about it at all, but it supports, like other Grape family members, so many different caterpillars. I think when we think about what a garden-worthy plant is, we’re in the process of reassessing what garden-worthy means because garden-worthy means now that it also supports and plays a functional role in our ecosystem. It’s not just about being this tidy, saleable plant. We have a whole new definition of garden worthy.

Margaret: That’s definitely very well said. I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but yes. Because I will say, oh, it’s not enough to make pretty pictures and things like that, but garden-worthy, redefining that phrase, that’s well said.

What’s the peppervine? The genus? Can you tell me so I can look it up?

Ethan: It’s called Nekemias, and it used to be Ampelopsis.

Margaret: Oh, O.K. Sure. Oh, interesting. Well, I have to look that one up. Well, Ethan Kauffman, I’m glad to talk to you as always. And again, some of these things that you’re doing on a larger scale, they just still translate. I’m thinking now of 20 things that I want to find [laughter] and add to places in my own garden. I hope our listeners will feel the same way. So I will talk to you again soon, I hope. Thanks very much for making time.

Ethan: Thank you so much for having me.

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MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 17th year in March 2026. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Oct. 19, 2026 show using the player near the top of this transcript. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).