If you are an experienced gardener and want an invaluable reference for plants that will enhance your natural garden without requiring loads of work, this book is for you. They are divided into categories of Tough Perennials (the longest section by far), Playful Biennials and Annuals, Troublesome Invasive Plants, and Troublesome Capricious Plants – hardly the usual categories! These are the plants he uses in his designs. And if you get the chance, watch the film “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf”.ĭream Plants for the Natural Garden by Henk Gerritsen and Piet Oudolf, Timber Press 2000Įssentially a catalog (although not all plants are pictured) of plants that Oudolf has culled to be “reliable plants that, over the years, can be maintained in an average garden without too much in the way of artificial props and bolstering”. If you would like to know more about Piet Oudolf’s gardens, plant choices, and design process, here are some reference materials. Lurie Garden with selected areas left standing for pollinators. Native plants are often included, though there is no particular emphasis on them.
Plants are left standing well into winter, providing seed and shelter. From early season to late, things are blooming. So I wondered, how pollinator-friendly are Oudolf’s naturalistic gardens, really? As research in this lab has shown, though, a garden designed specifically to be pollinator friendly has an outsized impact. When it comes to pollinators, it seems, almost any garden is better than no garden at all, and a garden doesn’t need to be designed especially for pollinators in order to offer benefits to them. He has a palette of plants that he has tested over time for durability and effect.ĭuring the bloom season, one imagines these gardens will be buzzing with pollinators, and be places of lively, hungry activity. Oudolf himself acknowledges, though, that they require a certain amount of “interference”, and his design process is comprehensive and very specific. They evoke flower-filled meadows and prairies, and seem at first glance like places that could, indeed, have occurred spontaneously.
Oudolf’s gardens have been described as spontaneous, immersive and naturalistic, and rely heavily on grasses and structural perennials to maintain visual interest well into the winter. His popular public garden designs, and several books, have had a profound impact on the design of public spaces, as well as private gardens. This recently-released film has brought renewed attention to the gardens and landscapes created by this internationally-renowned designer. Īs part of Master Gardener Week at the end of October, I had the opportunity to view “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf” and participate in a discussion afterwards. Oudolf-designed garden at Pensthorpe, Fakenham, UK.
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