Piet Oudolf's garden

back garden - Piet and Anya Oudolf's private gardenI've talked a bit about my visit last fall to naturalistic gardens in the Netherlands and Germany recently, and have been reminded, again, about how amazing they were.  Piet and Anya Oudolf's garden in Hummelo, in the Netherlands, was remarkable...

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First thoughts about Piet and Anja Oudolf's garden

I knew I'd like this garden, but I was overwhelmed. It was extraordinary. I couldn't believe how creative the juxtaposition of textures, shapes, and colors were, and the way senescing plants were part of it- amazing.The Joe-Pye and Vernonia were in full flower and all of the grasses were in their glory,...

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Botanical gardens and natural plant communities

A primary incentive to visit gardens in Germany and the Netherlands was to see the gardens inspired by nature, created in public spaces. But an unexpected pleasure (on my first garden visiting day) has been the wonderful collections of native plants in naturalistic plant community plantings in two University...

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Looking forward to garden visiting

In just about a month, I'll be visiting gardens in Germany and the Netherlands for a couple of weeks on a self-guided garden study tour.I've been wanting to do this for several years, after I started learning more about the 'new wave' gardening trends practiced by Dutch, German, and English garden designers, creating naturalistic gardens, and often using many of our North American natives.It should...

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Olympic garden plantings

I've been immersing myself in learning more about 'New Wave' naturalistic planting design in Europe (and the inspirations for them), and was impressed by the new plantings for the Olympics in London (following google hits for James Titchmough and Sarah Price).They're well worth taking a look at. Here's the Telegraph photo ess...

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MORE meadows, pocket meadows, and prairie gardens

I've been immersing myself in learning more about meadow gardening (and prairie gardening) and naturalistic gardens as practiced by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury and others. It's not an unfamiliar topic for me, but I've having fun revisiting it.I'm doing a pocket native gardening program at the Cullowhee Native Plants Conference next week, so I'm wanting to be up to date.It's so interesting that...

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