Gardens can evolve over time to reflect the interests and character of their makers and eventually a unique atmosphere will develop. Alternatively, they can be designed either by their owners or a professional designer with the aim of creating a specific mood or visual impact. In this series of posts – Mind Gardens – I …
For a garden to be more than just a comfortable place to sit in to drink a cup of coffee there needs to be some sort of idea underpinning its design. Ideas together with constraints guide the design process and can lead to outdoor spaces that have focus, draw attention to something or evoke an …
Laren, the Netherlands, September 2018 design Piet Oudolf Five theme plants along with up to 25% of so-called complementary plants create many of the planting schemes in my series of eBooks on perennial meadow gardening. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, May 2018 design Ton Muller Amsterdam, the Netherlands, August 2018 design Ton Muller Here is a new scheme, …
New Planting Scheme: Low-growing, for an open, sunny site Read More »
Here are the last glimpses of autumn in my Amsterdam trial gardens. As a photographer I can make carefully composed images, but this “walking video” gives you the wider view.
Asters, grasses and autumn tints are the main ingredients that brought my garden to its final crescendo this year. Following a long hot and merciless dry summer in which everything struggled including myself, autumn arrived with just a little rain and everything changed. Autumn tints were early, but many old clumps of Miscanthus grasses …
Beauty is to be found in the chaos of nature and this year, in the struggle for life amidst the perennials and shrubs in my gardens. A drier than average spring followed by a totally dry summer in which a hundred days passed without any significant rainfall in a country famous for its canals; I …
Dutch Perennial Gardens in the Dry and Hot Summer of 2018 Read More »
It is in late spring, just after the tulips have ended, that I become delighted by the many flowering shrubs and distinctive foliage colours that seem to dominate the garden. Of course there are various perennials flowering including Euphorbia, Geum, Geranium and bulbous plants such as Camassia and ornamental onions, but foliage colours and the flowering mounds …
My last post showed the garden three weeks ago just after I had knocked down all the perennials with the question “would you want your garden looking like that?”. Well, as promised, the perennials have reappeared rapidly to cover the ground level debris and the shrubs are bursting into flower. This is how it was …
Not everyone would want their garden looking like mine does at this moment. However, what I see is a clean slate; the garden’s perennials have all been broken into small pieces and dropped on the ground where they will rot down over the coming year. After the winter the dead perennial’s stems are brittle and …
Winter has really arrived here in Amsterdam. It is cool and wet and I am glad that I have finished my replanting projects. Last week I weeded here and there, tidied away broken or flopped stems, and topped up the wood chip paths. The garden is quite tidy now if you can appreciate the look …