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Results for Designers

Enter Sandman: The High Diversity Plantings of Peter Korn

Our talk in April was a trip to the beach. Because the near mythical Swedish plantsman and designer Peter Korn is pioneering a new way of creating wildly inspired climate-tough gardens and he’s doing it all with sand.

The gardens of Peter Korn are like no other – bursting with a hyper-concentration of esoteric plant species with non-stop flowering from spring till fall. Every plant is neatly fitted to its ecological niche and microhabitat within the greater scheme. From his base at Klinta Trädgård near Malmö, Peter is setting convention on its head with gardens that defy usual practices. They’re tough, beautiful, and pure catmint for plant lovers.

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The New Perennialist 2.0 Redesigned to Feed your Mind

Welcome back to the very new New Perennialist.

I’m thrilled to unveil the latest version of this blog, freshly redesigned over Summer 2021 to gear up for the next round of explorations in naturalistic planting design.

The awe-inspiring drone shot of the new Piet Oudolf-designed garden at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany helps to set the tone.

What started out as a blog based on my outsider’s fascination with naturalistic planting design has grown over the course of nearly ten years into a useful archive of original content. I’ve been truly gratified by how it’s come to be enjoyed as a resource by like-minded garden friends from around the world.

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The Wildscaping Symposium: COVID-19 Update

My Wildscaping Symposium in Naturalistic Planting Design is now officially postponed.

Our new target date is fall 2022. Same place. Same time of year. A new sense of urgency to reconnect with our fellow humans and the natural world.

In the year of the virus almost no one saw coming, spring itself appears to be on hold.

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Future Nature: Reconnecting Plants and People

In my hiatus, I’ve taken the time to study up on some of the latest thinking in ecology and planting design. I’m excited to have found some great books and strong paths of convergence well worth sharing.

My first review is for a magnum opus, ‘Naturalistic Planting Design: The Essential Guide’ written by Nigel Dunnett from Sheffield University and published earlier this year on Filbert Press.

More than living up to its title, Dunnett presents an overarching vision to shift the still emerging discipline of planting design forward to the next phase in its evolution. Let’s crack it open and take a look. 

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Wild is the Windcliff

The Pacific West Coast is where I first found my voice.

It was decades ago that my 19-year old bohemian self flew out alone from Toronto on a one-way ticket to California, armed only with guitar, duffel bag, and a hardcover edition of James Joyce’s Ulysees.

I returned to the West Coast recently to talk about new directions in naturalistic planting design at the invitation of the Bellevue Botanical Garden in Seattle.

The invitation came with an irresistible carrot.

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