Product Description

Piet Oudolf's gardens excite the senses and stir the emotions. Representing a giant step forward from the conventional colour-themed border, this new approach to gardening gives just as much emphasis to form, texture, light and movement as it does to colour. Individual plants are used as harmonious elements in luxuriant and atmospheric plantings. Written in collaboration with Noel Kingsbury, "Designing with Plants" is an informative and visually breathtaking study of Piet Oudolf's planting theory and practice, and it provides all the advice necessary to create the same effects in your own garden. Beginning with the building blocks of planting design, a visual sourcebook of Planting Palettes illustrates some of the huge choice available in terms of form, texture and colour. The following chapter explains, with the use of planting plans and diagrams, how to combine these basic elements to create stunning and sculptural planting schemes. Theory is put into practice in Planting Moods in which stunning photography demonstrates how to create a particular feeling or atmosphere, and Year-Round Planting emphasizes the importance of choosing plants to give value throughout the seasons so that they contribute to the garden in death as well as in life. Rounding off with a detailed directory of key plants, "Designing with Plants" is destined to become an inspiration to all gardeners who wish to create, in Piet's words, 'an impression and an expression of nature'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6482 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
When your new gardening bible comes with chapters entitled Birth, Life, and Death, you know you're in trouble. But be brave, turn to those chapters, and in some very practical little essays on planting, you'll uncover the very down-to- earth principle from which Piet Oudolf's radical reinvention of gardening is based: plants die.

In the traditional mixed border, shrubs, climbers, perennials, bulbs and annuals defy mortality; when one plant passes its best, there's always another in the wings, waiting to grab the eye. But such borders have very little impact: there is too little at any one time to hold one's attention. Oudolf wonders why we fight the unavoidable. Why not create borders that bring out the beauty of plants throughout their natural cycles?

Our obsession with colour is another deadening influence on current gardening practice. Plants have form: leaves, flower heads and stems have beauty and variety too and last far longer than any bloom. Why not create gardens that use the whole plant, not just its genitals? This, as you've probably already guessed, is a recipe for perennials, and without any of that anxious autumn rush to cut down those perfectly lovely bare stems and seed heads.

With these versatile plants, Oudolf would have us all create gardens that change month by month, week by week, even day by day. It's a radical, beautiful vision that's absurdly easy to achieve. In Designing with Plants Noel Kingsbury has done a terrific job of bringing Oudolf's work within reach of the rest of us.--Simon Ings

About the Author
Piet Oudolf has designed gardens and public parks throughout Europe, and his own garden and nursery (run by his wife Anja, see www.oudolf.com) in Holland is world famous, having featured in many articles and books. He is a skilled plant breeder who creates new varieties for specific design purposes. Noel Kingsbury is recognized internationally as a leading innovator in horticulture and landscape. His main area of interest and expertise is nature-inspired planting design, and the application of plant ecology to design and garden management. He writes for the UK and US garden press and has written 15 books. Together with Tim Richardson, he co-hosts 'The Vista Debates', a monthly forum for the discussion of garden and landscape issues, at London's Museum of Garden History.

Customer Reviews

If you buy only one garden book this year, this should be it
Oudolf has an approach to plant form and function that make other design books look strictly two dimensional. He creates moods, mysticism, and makes us re-think why we appreciate natural beauty. With no disrespect intended, this book makes most of the classic British garden designers look, well, like they lived in the 19th century.

I recently bought this for a friend and signed it: "the only garden book you really need"

A book to drool over
Piet Oudolf has rightly become a household name to many gardeners. His use of plants for year round interest has inspired many to try things they may not otherwise have done.

This book will help you to do likewise - it takes you through planting palettes (including form, leaves and colour); designing schemes (using combinations, plants to use for structure or fillers; assembling a planting; use of grasses); how to create moods in a garden; Year round planting, using the natural cycle of plants, through birth, life and glory even in death.

What a feast for the senses just looking through this book. Inspiration indeed.

If you love plants and gardening, this is it!
Glad I followed the advise: indeed this is the one gardening book! What a thrilling experience! What an inexhaustible source of new ideas! Besides, it is a pleasure being able to share Piet and Anja's love for planting. It will certainly make a difference to my garden.