Category Archives: Art in the garden

Chelsea Show Gardens – teach us nothing

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Michael

I have just finished watching the BBC’s daily reports on the Chelsea Flower Show 2014 and I must say that the new presenter, Monty Don, has significantly improved the standard of debate and analysis of the various plants and gardens … Continue reading →

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“New” Naturalistic Planting

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Michael

I have always been uneasy with the term naturalistic planting, not with what it actually means, but with the way it is used in the media to describe any “new” planting scheme in which perennials together with ornamental grasses are … Continue reading →

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Never New Gardening

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Michael

Never say new when trumpeting gardens, garden designers or trends in gardening. If anything is new it is seized upon by its followers and all too quickly becomes aspirational. I once wrote a book with Piet Oudolf and Henk Gerritsen … Continue reading →

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Gardening is a Process not a Production

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Michael

Blogging like gardening is a process that takes place over time. At its best ideas and results are explored and explained, but there will need to be modulation. Without troughs and dips in level of activity the possibility of highlights … Continue reading →

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Spring Snow in Amsterdam

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Michael

  In 2005 Amsterdam was named as The Elm City of Europe as it has more than 75,000 elm trees, many some 80 to 100 years old, growing along the sides of its canals and throughout the city’s parks. In … Continue reading →

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Naturalistic Planting?

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Michael

First published in ThinkinGardens last month, my article about new trends in planting design succeeded in triggering a lively debate about the meaning, not only of the term naturalistic planting, but the motives for garden making in the twenty first … Continue reading →

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Garden Photography

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Michael

In the last ten years digital cameras have improved to the point where technical aspects of photography such as exposure, depth of field, focus and sharpness are no longer problems. What has not become any easier is composition and the … Continue reading →

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Small Gardens in the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Germany – Part Two

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Michael

The two hundred hectares of the Landscape Park in Duisburg is big enough for the largest of festivals both within its many converted industrial buildings and across its open tracts and wooded areas. There are numerous places to loose oneself, … Continue reading →

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Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Germany – Part One

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Michael

I wrote recently about the need for planting designs to be created in response to their setting or situation. My recent visit to a park in Germany, the so-called landscape park in Duisburg, confirmed my point and at the same … Continue reading →

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Perennial Meadows – Designing a painting is fundamentally different from designing a planting scheme.

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Michael

Paintings we frame and consider as art. Gardens are sometimes considered as art, but the elements we use to frame them form part of their design and maybe also part of their “art”. Here at Perennial Meadows we are concerned … Continue reading →

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