It’s now full-on spring in the sheltered woodland of my northern un-cottage garden.

The crabapple tree is weeping shell-pink blossoms as the red lady ferns unfurl from beneath its dappled shadow. Spiky filaments of Camassia and Allium light up the sunnier beds in a wandering halo of purple and blue.

Barely a week later, it all flies by – the last of my tulips got chomped by deer, along with a few choice perennials. But no time to mourn. A vast legion of plants is coming in fast, green, and lush – preparing for their moment in the sun.

If spring is about new life, it’s also about unearthing fresh ideas. With that in mind, here are my ‘spring theories’ – designed to either stir the imagination or stir the pot, as you will.

Spring Theory No. 1

The garden is a palimpsest.

Definition: A palimpsest is a piece of paper or manuscript, which has been erased and written over many, many times. And where traces of the previous layers may still be partly read.

This word may be ripped from archaeology but it sounds like a garden to me. A place that reflects and contains its own natural history. Comprised of layers both real and imagined, a garden transforms inevitably over time – whether by natural growth and decay, the occasional lightning strike, and of course, the gardener’s yen for change.

Go far back enough and every garden exists in a place that was once wild. Or at least not a garden. In my case, settlers cleared a dense oak savannah to make a village; the local handyman rolled in granite boulders by hand, a retired farmer built a low stone wall and planted cedar hedges.

A generation ago, my english mother made her pretty cottage garden here – with what she called “higgelty-piggelty” mixed borders stuffed with pretty annuals each summer. I have her to thank for the raw bones of the garden now encrusted with lichen – but almost all the plantings have changed.

Except each spring, a handful of the red tulips she planted decades ago still resurfaces. And the crabapple blooms. Brilliant links to another time.

Wherever I look, visible traces of past and present are busy crossing paths – often with a geographical twist. Established old drifts of perennials brush up against the latest leafy acquisition. A native sedge encircles a Himalayan fern. Seedlings thrive in spots I never would have though to pick.

And without a doubt, a remnant of the original wild layer is still there – in the soil, the buzzing insect life, the seed bank, the air. In ways I cannot understand.

Surely the gardener’s craft is to weave all these strands together: to sense when to edit, leave things alone, encourage a self-seeder, to weed or not to weed. All with an eye to make it feel like it’s invisibly meant to be.

Experience what happens, act when necessary.

Piet Oudolf

Of course, only the gardener really sees the palimpsest in its full ragged glory. All the previous versions enfolded in the present moment. The thousand-fold reality of the garden universe – rolled up like a manuscript inside the mind.

Note: Pardon me. I’ve just learned that seminal American garden writer, Rick Darke, amongst others, talks about the landscape as palimpsest. I’d be very curious to hear his take.

Spring Theory No. 2

Think big in small spaces.

Allow me to explode a few myths out there in the ether.

This past winter, I read The New English Garden by eminent Brit garden journalist/writer Tim Richardson. It’s an impressive and highly readable coffee-table book, primarily focused on palatial estate gardens with statuary to burn. Not many gardens much under a hectare or two seems to have made the cut (except for a vertical garden created in London by long finger-nailed French genius, Patrick Le Blanc.)

This is an important book profiling the work of top modern designers working in England like Dan Pearson, Tom Stuart-Smith, the Sheffield School, Piet Oudolf, and others. And Richardson also revisits the influence of the Dutch Wave with the confidence that England is now rediscovering its mojo in planting design – working towards a more “embroidered” style.

That said, I found myself squarely at odds with some of the fine points in the essays on New Perennial planting.

For example, writing about the Piet Oudolf garden at Scampston Hall in Yorkshire, Richardson opines the following:

Oudolf’s signature planting style is often criticized for its limitations in terms of scale – essentially, it looks best and is easiest to handle across  big spaces, and it is sometimes deemed pointless on a domestic scale. It may indeed be true that it would not be possible to make this style work on the scale of a small or medium-sized garden…

“Pointless on a domestic scale?” Really?

I’m not so sure.

To be sure, enormity of scale is impressive. But hardly a mandate. Nature, after all, fills any vacuum it can find.

I believe you can create a new perennial garden in a space the size of a teacup.

How?

Well. First of all – it’s not just a style. It’s a way of  seeing  plants in a four-dimensional way. Seeing beyond blooms and colour to the essence of their shape, texture and structure. Beyond that, it’s the wilder artistry and ecological logic of how you combine different plants and grasses together. And how you choose to maintain it.

So, what about planting design at a smaller scale?

The New Perennial approach evolved to create interest from both the macro and micro viewing perspective. From near and far. In the smaller garden, it’s the same goal – albeit at a reduced scale and with more emphasis on the micro.

Beyond that though, it’s also about creating naturalistic gardens with a sense of atmosphere. It’s not about whether there are 17 + plants per drift – although the beauty of that is undeniable.

I’ve worked for over a decade to create my version of a New Perennial planting in a smaller-scale garden. With no clear guide, it’s taken me a while to figure out – but there’s no doubt in my mind that it can be done and done well.

In fact, a home gardener like myself can search out many of the very same plants used by Piet Oudolf, Henk Gerritsen, Tom Stuart-Smith etc. And I can put them together in similar aesthetic combinations. What we lack in scale, we make up by dialing in a finer level of intimacy and detail – achieved by planting techniques like intermingling.

And while I love visiting the major public projects of Oudolf and his peers, it’s at home where I really experience the full dimension of this way of planting. And really get to know how the plants perform through every season.

Messrs. Oudolf and Kingsbury are out to inspire people to create in whatever size garden they might possess. There are no scale requirements. You hear the same thinking from Horticultural Ecologist, Professor James Hitchmough about starting a wildflower meadow from seed – the meadow can be the size of a picnic blanket. You just dial in and edit more closely.

So my dear Tim Richardson. In this matter, I think you’re well off the mark. Otherwise, an invaluable book.

Giant plants. Small spaces.

One more point on this theme. Do think big in terms of selecting key plants for small spaces. It allows you to create the dynamic contrast of scale that makes this approach err… so effective in a smaller garden.

Mammoth perennials like Persicaria polymorpha, Vernonia, Eupatorium, Thalictrum ‘Elin’ spring to mind, all of which I have in my northern garden – often wedded tightly to equally magnificent ornamental grasses.

Spring Theory No. 3

Get out of the garden.

This spring, I made a series of local field trips to explore diverse patches of forest woodland, an outcropping of granite highlands, and a vast limestone alvar nearby called the Cardon Plains.

I’m no expert naturalist but it’s a chance to widen one’s perspective – to wander with curiousity and an eye for detail, to learn by quiet example from nature, the greatest teacher of all.

It’s apparent that no plant grows in isolation in the wild. It’s always part of an interdependent community woven together by common habitat and strategies for survival.

In terms of design, I strive to recreate a sense of community or benign coexistence – but I’m under no illusions that any garden can emulate the complexity of wild spaces.

More like the garden is an invented hyperreality with the ability to take on a life of its own.

Design inspiration can come from anywhere. Look to modern art, music, theatre… all is grist for the mill.

Spring Theory No. 4

The garden never ends.

These days, my garden life is a touch surreal. For years, I led something of a solitary existence working on my northern garden from spring to fall. Followed by countless hours absorbed in design and horticultural books, haunting boutique nurseries, and slowly collecting my dream palette of plants.

That’s the beauty of making a perennial garden. You can experiment in phases or leave it alone to do its own thing, as you will.

Nowadays via social media, we can be virtually linked to gardenista friends from all over the world posting photos and updates of their gardens and projects.

While I was initially super cynical of Facebook, the reality is proving me wrong. There are lively forums for discussion and the opportunity to connect with kindred spirits in ways never possible before.

Curious? Join our fast-growing group ‘Dutch Dreams’ on FB – a global membership with a common passion for naturalistic planting.

Never have I been so aware of the hemispheric shifts in climatic zones and seasonality. I now regularly hear from fellow gardeners and designers in Europe, the UK, and the Pacific West Coast, all starting months ahead of myself here in Canada on the global garden clock.

No matter. Each garden in its own time and latitude, I suppose. Dancing in the sun against the curvature of the earth.

So much for theories. Next up, I plan to explore the practical side of creating a naturalistic woodland planting in whatever size space we call home.