Designing with Plants

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.

Rethink the typical garden design of extensive lawn and narrow border. Instead, explore islands of flowers, thick lines of plants, and mixtures of shrubs, roses, perennials, and annuals growing together in perfect harmony. This mingled arrangement maintains its beauty longer, extends the value of the planting area, and lies at the heart of today's ornamental garden. If you aren't aware of the wide variety of mixed border types that exist, you're missing a valuable opportunity to make optimum use of natural resources. Dozens of photos show different approaches, from highly formal to almost wild.

Explore islands of flowers, lines of plants, and shrubs, roses, perennials, and annuals growing together in perfect harmony. This mingled arrangement extends the beauty and value of the planting area, and lies at the heart of today's ornamental garden. Don't miss a valuable opportunity to make optimum use of natural resources with one of a variety of mixed border types. Dozens of photos show different approaches.

Piet Oudolf is a native of Holland and originally studied to be an architect. Instead of designing buildings he became the founder of New Wave planting, a movement which takes inspiration from nature but employs artistic skill in creating planting schemes. As a plantsman, his aim is to emphasize the form, texture, and natural harmony of plants, and as a skilled plant breeder, he creates new varieties for these and other specific design purposes. His style is the result of the influence of various horticultural traditions such as the combination of Dutch formality and naturalistic planting styles.Noël Kingsbury is a leading expert in contemporary naturalistic planting design. He contributes regularly to Hortus, Homes and Gardens, The English Garden, and the royal horticultural society's magazine, The Garden. Noël lectures regularly in the United States, and has always been firmly in the vanguard of new developments, playing a major role in popularizing a more naturalistic and sustainable planting style.