Colours are the spectacle in my autumn garden. They need sun to glow and when the wind blows the tall ornamental grasses start dancing to its tune. Much of my planting plans are to do with building the picture up to the final curtain call in autumn with the summer flowering perennials simply holding my hand …
My trial gardens in Amsterdam have teetered on the edge of chaos this year as a result of moving house. Weeds are under control and wayward growth ruthlessly chopped down, but I long for a clean sweep and the fresh growing season in 2015. Although colour is everywhere in the garden this autumn from bright …
In my previous post I celebrate the colour green; now others are challenging its supremacy. Here and there shrubs now rise above my perennial meadows bringing exciting new forms and contrasts to the looser plant material that surrounds them. Complementary plants form part of my perennial meadow planting schemes and are there to serve an …
Colours Gather Strength in the Perennial Meadows Garden Read More »
In Perennial Meadows The mild winter and spring in the Netherlands has triggered everything into growth. The overwhelming colour is green even though a lot is actually in flower. Green in its many shades is at the very heart of all garden planting. Celebrate it:
During my recent short trip to England where I was specifically studying shrubs – see earlier post – I took a look at two “new” (at least to me) large-scale, public, perennial planting schemes. One scheme was clearly designed to impress, the other succeeded. To be fair, designers are commissioned to create something stipulated by their …
My trial gardens in Amsterdam seem to have waltzed through the colour wheel this year in spite of the difficulties that weather has throw at them. Spring was too dry, the first half of summer was cold and dry, then it rained a few times but quickly became unbearably hot. Drought has prevailed for more …
Late Summer Colour in the Perennial Meadows’ Garden Read More »
With the opening of the new Native Plant Garden at the New York Botanical Gardens earlier this month I was inspired to pay a return visit to the heempark in Amstelveen which is recognised as one of Europe’s best. The Dutch landscape is in part manmade and has been intensively managed for centuries. The native …
Native Plant Gardens in The Netherlands known as Heemparken Read More »
Is garden design in a rut created by the way we are taught to approach it? Perhaps it is the result of the scale of modern-day gardens that we think in terms of boundaries and what we can place within them that is partly the cause. Inspiring gardens and landscapes of the both the past …
September is possibly the most exciting time to view a naturalistic planting scheme and where better than Piet and Anja Oudolf’s private garden in the Netherlands. In the space formerly occupied by the nursery a new office building is surrounded by an extensive perennial meadow. This new addition to their private gardens has an open …
Floriade 2012 – the mid summer review A garden show such as the Floriade which runs all summer gives its designers the opportunity to try out different planting ideas. During my first visit it was tulips that dominated and created the festival spirit that I associate with the arrival of spring. Now in mid summer …