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 featured. The one interview he conducted with Thomas Heatherwick really struck home with me when …
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 mixed in an informal arrangement. The true underlying principle of naturalistic gardening is the intrinsic …
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 entitled New Plants, New Gardens (A new movement in garden design). That was in 1997 …
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 and peaks will not exist. My blog, like my garden has been at rest this …
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 fact, Amsterdam is one of the most densely wooded cities in the world with some …
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 century in the broadest sense. After reading my thoughts below, please do go to ThinkinGardens …
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 ability to communicate; in other words, the art of photography. Generally I am disappointed by …
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, nooks and crannies to explore, walkways high in the sky to view the terrain and …
Small Gardens in the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Germany – Part Two Read More »
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 time jolting me into seeking new forms and abstractions in my own design work. We …
Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, Germany – Part One Read More »
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 with perennial planting schemes as part of a garden’s design and many of the considerations …