Gone to Seed: 2015

Already, there’s been a flurry of activity about all things New Perennialistic for 2015. From my vantage point in subzero Toronto, I can spy everything from a local lecture series to greater stories being released in the form of magazines, books, and a film (more on that later).

It’s safe to say that the zeitgeist of this design movement continues to spread its frost-tipped wings.

Homefront

On the local front, there’s a personal touch. The Toronto Botanical Gardens has asked me to deliver a pair of talks/workshops this winter focused on New Perennial planting design and how to translate it to a residential-scale environment.

I’m pulling together key principles and learning from Piet Oudolf, Noel Kingsbury et al. coupled with insights gleaned over a decade of experimentation in my own un-cottage garden. In my mind, it fills a vital gap in figuring out how to rock this style in your own garden.

I’m pleased to connect with the TBG – itself in a state of potential transformation with plans to radically augment the scope of the gardens in a project led by effervescent landscape architect, Gary W. Smith and new TBG executive director, Harry Jongerden.

Other highlights of their 2015 program include a lecture by the brilliant landscape ethicist, Rick Darke in early February entitled Living Landscapes: Putting Back the Layers. More locally, look out for a four-session Guide to Perennials taught by good friend and plantsman, Jeff Mason of Mason House nurseries. If you’re in TO, come along for the ride. Find all the specific course descriptions here – including my own.

Further Afield

The first time I visited the Oudolf private garden in Hummelo, I narrowly missed bumping into Adam Woodruff, an American-based planting designer also there for his very first time.

Adam’s passion for all things Oudolf is intense and humbling. Not simply a designer, he is also a photo archivist of Piet’s gardens and plant palettes with invaluable libraries of images on Flickr. He’s supremely well-travelled and connected, a seeker of horticultural truth and wonders in gardens all over.

With much in common, it seemed inevitable we’d meet – first via the usual social networks. But we formed an actual friendship at the pivotal Hummelo design workshop in 2013 followed by Noel Kingsbury’s tour of the Dutch Northern provinces. Adam and I logged many hours in the back of the bus, talking and laughing in botanical latin about everything under the sun.

Scarcely a year later, Adam’s star is bursting supernova with signature work featured on the cover of Fine Gardening and profiled within the hallowed Brit mag, Gardens Illustrated. In truth, he’s just getting started.

Amongst other things, he also won the Gardenista 2014 Considered Design Awards for professional design – all on the strength of a lyrical meadow garden in Missouri called Jones Road, inspired in part by Piet’s early masterpiece at The Lurie Garden in Chicago. Either pick up the magazines on the newstand or skip directly to this quite excellent interview with Adam published online at Landarchs.com.

A Book for the Ages

Great excitement directly from the mountain top itself.

We can expect the latest book in Piet and Noel’s oeuvre to appear in late April 2015.

Entitled Hummelo: A Journey Through a Plantsman’s Life – it looks at the whole evolution of the Dutch Wave in terms of the people, plants and place that made it possible. I’m fascinated with how this all came to be.

Previously the story was only really told in print from the perspective of the late Henk Gerritsen in his masterly and amusing Essay on Gardening. Another piece in the eternal puzzle.