Dream Plants for the Natural Garden

by Oudolf, Piet

• ISBN13: 9780881924930
• ISBN10: 0881924938
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-11-17
• Publisher: Timber Pr

Summary

Timber Press has previously published two critically acclaimed and bestselling books by Piet Oudolf, the influential Dutch landscape designer: Gardening with Grasses (with Michael King) and Designing with Plants (with Noël Kingsbury). This new collaboration with fellow Dutch plantsman Henk Gerritsen deals with a selection of some 1200 plants most suitable for Oudolf's New Wave naturalism, which emphasizes the importance of plant structures in providing all-season interest. The gardener can prune back plants after flowering to create a perpetual spring - at least until the onset of winter - but the authors prefer to follow nature's example and let plants finish flowering, not only to please the birds and butterflies, but for the beauty that well-chosen plant groupings offer as they reach the end of their life cycle. Many illustrations in this book demonstrate the striking effects of Oudolf's favorite plants in fall and winter.

Table of Contents

Preface	4	(3)
Noel Kingsbury
Introduction	7	(5)
Part 1 Tough
Perennials	12	(48)
Battling with ground elder	42	(12)
Winter silhouettes	54	(5)
Giant plants	59	(1)
Grasses	60	(3)
Food for all	62	(1)
Ferns	63	(3)
Bulbs	66	(10)
Shrubs	76	(7)
Part 2 Playful
Self-seeding perennials	83	(16)
Colour schemes	86	(11)
The rhythm section	97	(2)
Biennials and tender perennials	99	(17)
Soap bubbles	110	(6)
Annuals	116	(6)
After flowering	120	(2)
Part 3 Troublesome
Invasive plants	122	(8)
Capricious plants	130	(6)
Staking	135	(1)
Demanding plants	136	(3)
Failing the test	138	(1)
Index	139	(5)
Nurseries	144	(1)
Bibliography	144

Excerpts

Winter is perhaps the best time of year for the gardener: the peace! You don't have to do anything, you don't have to think about anything and you don't have to worry about anything. You can just sit next to the fire reading gardening books and dreaming about how wonderful the garden will be next summer. Naturally, you will have to ensure that the garden has been prepared for winter: that is to say readied for winter without having cut back one plant or raked one leaf. Silhouettes of Eupatorium, Aster umbellatus, Veronicastrum virginicum and the beautiful black spherical seed heads left by the monardas which even in the depths of winter smell like Earl Grey tea. Grasses, of course, especially Miscanthus with its amazing silver plumes, and a lot of Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' against the backdrop of a neatly clipped hedge or just against the chill winter wind: it is always sad when you have to cut it back again in spring. And in front, close to the house so you can see them from your armchair, the strong, fleshy shoots of hellebores, working their way through the fallen leaves and remains of last summer's border intones of apple green, darkest purple, white and pale pink, exactly as you would see them in nature, in the Balkans. And, naturally, a specimen of Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn' next to the door so you can experience the delicious scent of its flowers every time you go in and out. A garden lovely enough to lift the spirits even on the most sombre and overcast days of winter. And when it has frozen and frost lies everywhere, or when it has snowed, it is so beautiful that you can sit, next to your cat, and stare outside for hours with your nose pressed against the window pane admiring the ghostly forms.

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Excerpted from Dream Plants for the Natural Garden by Piet Oudolf, Henk Gerritsen
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.