Overview
Piet Oudolf's gardens excite the senses and stir emotion with an approach to gardening that emphasizes form, texture, light, movement, and color. Designing with Plants is both inspirational and instructive-an informative and visually breathtaking study that shows readers how to create the same effects in their gardens. This paperback reprint includes four main parts. "Planting Palettes" shows the range of plant choice available in form, texture, and color. "Designing Schemes" shows how to combine these elements to create stunning and sculptural gardens. Through stunning photography, "Planting Moods" shows how to create a particular atmosphere. And "Year-Round Planting" emphasizes the importance of choosing plants that have value throughout the seasons.
Synopsis
Based on New Wave planting, a spectacular naturalistic style of landscape design that values plants for form, texture, and year-round interest, this book will help you create original and captivating gardens.
Horticulture
"(Piet Outdolf's) views about which perennials look best in fall and winter, along with inspiring photographs of late-season gardens he has created, can be found in Designing with Plants, written with Noel Kingsbury."—Horticulture, September 2003
Editorials
Des Moines Register
"Designing with Plants by Piet Oudolf, is worth buying or checking out just for the photos of beautiful, casual gardens."
— Stephanie Bruner
Library Journal
A garden designer and plant breeder, Oudolf designs gardens that use perennials exclusively, eschewing the current trend toward high-maintenance mixed borders of perennials, annuals, and shrubs. He values perennials for their form and texture, emphasizing structure as the most important aspect in successful garden design. The color of flowers comes in a distant third after the form of the plant and the shape of the leaves; Oudolf's motto is "a successful plant combination relies primarily on shapes." To help gardeners follow this principle, he lists plants he has found valuable based on what he calls a "palette of shapes" and gives diagrams for planning borders based on them. While his approach is novel and thought-provoking, it reflects the context in which he works, mainly Britain and Northern Europe. But even if you do not garden in this ideal maritime climate, his ideas will be helpful, especially his advice on when to break the rules: "To be a successful gardener you need to understand the basics of how plants grow, and how they develop over time." Recommended for large public and academic libraries.--Daniel Starr, Museum of Modern Art, New York Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Dutch garden designer and nurseryman Piet Oudolf, with No<:e>l Kingsbury, presents the concepts behind his distinctive landscapes which emphasize form, texture, light, movement, and elements of surprise as well as color. His treatment of palettes, design schemes, moods, and cycles are clearly explored through inspiring and appropriately chosen color photographs. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
"(Piet Outdolf's) views about which perennials look best in fall and winter, along with inspiring photographs of late-season gardens he has created, can be found in Designing with Plants, written with Noel Kingsbury."—Horticulture, September 2003
"Stretches your imagination to see plants not just for their flowers but also for their shape, form, color, size, and texture in all seasons."— Maggie Oster, National Gardener, October 2003
— Maggie Oster
"Piet Oudolf [has] ... an uncanny eye for plant combinations."—Anne Raver, New York Times, March 2, 2003
— Anne Raver