Subscribe to The New Perennialist

×

Results for Naturalistic Design

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. 

Continue reading

Wildscaping: A Post-Earth Day Dream

Our perennial challenge is how to design plant-driven garden landscapes to express a wilder beauty while fulfilling ecological imperatives to spark biodiversity and feed the soul. 

We want to dream big and be practical all at the same time. 

To this end, I’ve captured and pulled together some of the more glowing threads from the hyperactive global conversation on how to plan, realize, and sustain designed landscapes in the public and private realm.

Continue reading

Closing Time: Goodbye to Hummelo

After nearly 40 years of welcoming the world through its gates, the private garden of Piet and Anja Oudolf at Hummelo will close to the public for good at the end of this month.

For all lovers of this most quintessential garden that galvanized an entire movement in naturalistic planting design, the news cuts deep.

Word of its closing has spread like wildfire-weed amongst garden folk and it’s inspired a kind of spontaneous pilgrimage of people visiting Kwekerij Oudolf one last time.

Continue reading

Fogbound: Inside the Veiled Garden

I had plans to write a post to unveil my new two-year old garden. It was going to be whimsical, poetic yet measured, with a splash of horticultural detail to bring life to the inner story.

Well, scrap all that.

Instead, I woke this morning and walked down to the pond to find that my garden had been transported to another dimension.

Suspended in a halo of fog, the plants beckoned forth in perfect stillness, and I stood there, spellbound.

Continue reading

The Red Trowel: A Journey with Piet Oudolf & Friends

I pursed my lips in quiet victory. At the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. on a Friday morning in April, my trowel and I glided through U.S. Customs to dig into my New Perennial opportunity of the year: a chance to help plant out a Piet Oudolf-designed botanic garden in Delaware.

One week later standing in his future meadow, I had the chance to ask Piet Oudolf himself that most basic of questions: “So Piet, how do you like to plant?”

Continue reading