Woodland gardens, while inviting in their serene natural state, pose their share of challenges for the gardener seeking color and a sense of structure.

Not for Bill Hudgins. Over the years, the Atlantan has figured out a way to have both an orderly garden emphasizing layers of rich texture and a landscape that appears largely untouched. By emphasizing large but selective collections of plants — Japanese maples, boxwoods, ferns and shade-loving ornamental grasses — the sprawling north Buckhead site combines subtle color with evergreen structure for lush, mountainlike woodlands year-round.

Photos by JOEY IVANSCO / AJC (ENLARGE)
Gravel pathways meander through the wooded garden, where Hudgins has added Japanese maples for color. The trees are known for their diversity in hue, form and texture.
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Ostrich ferns hug the bank of a creek, where a wooden bridge leads to the terraced entrance of spherical boxwoods at Bill Hudgins' home.
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'Zinda Red': Becomes fiery red in fall. • Photos: See Hudgins' favorite maples
TREE LATIN Know what you're buying when you shop for a plant. Because many plants are known by more than one common name, the most reliable way to ensure you're getting what you pay for is to ask for the plant by its Latin botanical name. When it comes to Japanese maples, here's an example: Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'. Acer: The genus, or family, of maples. Palmatum: One of several species of Japanese maple and the one with the most cultivars, or specific cultivated variety. Other groups include dissectum (the lace or threadleaf form) and japonicum. 'Bloodgood': The cultivar.

In winter, when his more than 250 varieties of Japanese maple go bare, the boxwoods keep the garden from fading to brown. Then, in spring, as the maples unfurl their colorful leaves, from deep purple and brilliant crimson to vibrant orange and limey chartreuse, the shrubs provide the perfect foil. Ferns and grasses soften any formality, hugging the banks of a small natural stream that bisects the property.

"What I love about Japanese maples is all the diversity," says Hudgins, who moved 100 of the trees from his former home in Decatur when he bought the Jett Road house seven years ago.

Besides color, the trees offer a variety of structural forms and leaf shapes. Throughout the nearly 3-acre garden, some maples are dwarf, mounded or upright, while others are weeping, spreading or vase shaped. Hudgins uses some as specimen plants, providing focal points, while others make a statement in containers — individually or grouped.

Inch by inch

The garden was begun at the house, a 1957 ranch that Hudgins expanded by bumping out the front and one end, opening it to the outdoors. "There wasn't much here," he says, "but mountain laurel and a few azaleas."

Hudgins, a garden designer and owner of Lush Life Garden & Flowers in Buckhead, never had a plan for the steep hillside site. The garden just evolved as he added more and more plants, and convenience dictated the pathways. Unlike most new homeowners, who want an instant landscape, "I wanted to put in things that take longer to mature," he says.

The garden begins with a wooded valley, where gravel pathways snake their way up the hill, at several points crossing gurgling Gold Creek with small wood-plank bridges. Close to the house, the garden grows more formal, with a series of terraces punctuated by tightly clipped spherical boxwoods.

On one side of the house, the property spans a utility easement, where only low-growing trees and shrubs are permitted. Here, Hudgins carved up the landscape into a topiary garden, formal boxwood garden and vegetable garden. Behind the house, the terrain ascends dramatically, requiring a steep set of stone steps and a zigzag pathway to navigate the hillside.

One more won't hurt

"Initially, I was going to keep the property really wooded and natural," he says, "but eventually, I wanted more places for planting things" — namely more Japanese maples, boxwoods and ferns. "I get this urge to have every different cultivar of a plant, and it just goes from there."

And with more than 700 patented varieties, Japanese maples offer plenty of choices. Hudgins grew many of his hundreds of trees from seedlings, while others were grafted.

His other "thing" is boxwoods — he has more than 50 different varieties manicured in neat mounds, spheres, cones and topiaries. Their finely textured foliage forms an eye-catching contrast to the toothy leaves of maples, the frilly fronds of ostrich ferns and the broad leaves of hosta and fatsia.

"I like big scale," Hudgins says, be it huge 'Blue Angel' and 'Sum and Substance' hostas or tall ceramic pots, which also add color to the mainly green garden. "I also love working with color, but for myself, I prefer lots of green and white."

At the end of a long day, what's more serene than that?

ABOUT JAPANESE MAPLES

• Native to Japan, China and Korea, they were introduced to England in 1820. Their diversity in color, structural form and leaf texture makes them a popular choice.

• They are slow growers but can reach 15 to 25 feet tall, with an equal or wider spread. Many of the dissectum (threadleaf) types, which offer finely cut, toothed leaves, reach only 6 to 8 feet and become mounded in shape.

• They are best known for their emerging spring color of deep purplish-red, but the species plant turns green in summer and in Georgia provides excellent fall color in November. Others hold their color until dropping their leaves in winter. One of the best known and most readily available cultivars is 'Bloodgood', which has deep reddish-purple foliage.

• The trees are low-maintenance and prefer well-drained soil. They do well in both shade and full sun.

• From a landscape value, it's one of the most flexible maple species because it can be used as a specimen, an accent, a border, a grouping or bonsai.

POTTED MAPLES

One of Hudgins' favorite ways to grow Japanese maples is in containers, from glazed ceramic pots to terra-cotta cylinders (below). Maples, which have fibrous roots, prefer well-drained soil; they don't like wet feet. "The main thing is water," Hudgins says. "They like a little daily rather than a flood and then drying out too much."