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Results for Nigel Dunnett

Nigel Dunnett on Future Nature: Reconnecting Plants and People

Like many in the international horticulture and ecology community, I am not only sad but heartbroken by the recent passing of Dr. Nigel Dunnett. He was a genuine eco-visionary and exemplar who in collaboration with colleagues like Professor James Hitchmough at the University of Sheffield and Dr. Nöel Kingsbury, staked out new frontiers of possibility in our field with projects that took ecological planting to a higher plane of  creative expression.

This post is my homage to a humble genius gone far too soon, and an introduction to the man and his work with links to his essential writings and books.

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Tea spiller thriller: James Hitchmough on Native & Non-Native in garden ecology

Here’s a touchy topic guaranteed to spark debate in garden chats on both sides of the Atlantic.

Often with polarized positions taken by one side or another with zero room for compromise.

Or maybe, just maybe, there’s the beginning of a hairline crack, a fissure in the wall.

As recent guest on US podcast Growing Greener, Professor James Hitchmough ever so politely weighs in on the ecological benefits of using both native and non-native plants in urban environs.

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Future forward: Planting seeds of thought in public space

This is a conversation about what could be.

A conversation between two generations of exceptional Dutch landscape designers imagining what might happen next in the dynamic field of planting design. What lessons we can take from a multilayered private garden like Hummelo to bring to the public space and back again?

It’s well worth a listen. And a cinematic treat to watch.

Especially when one side of the conversation is the iconic maestro Piet Oudolf and the other side is Arjan Boekel, planting designer/LA on the rise. Here we follow them out for a morning walk and talk in the mist at Hummelo followed by a visit to Superbloei, a new urban collab project with Arjan of De Bloeimeesters and LOLA landscape architects in the nearby town of Arnhem.

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Wildscape Update: New Talks

When I first posted my idea for Wildscaping here in spring 2019, it was with the secret hope that both the word and its spirit might take on a life of its own.

Like a message in a digital bottle.

We all know what happened next. Driven by the pandemic lockdowns, we experienced a seismic cultural shift to suddenly embrace all things plants, gardens, and matters of biodiversity in ways no-one could have ever predicted or imagined.

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