In late June, I left my patch of Canadian woodland far behind to travel overseas to the Netherlands and Germany. I was a gardener on a mission to meet some luminaries of contemporary Dutch planting design and explore their gardens and nurseries in my version of a midsummer night’s dream. Above all else, this trip was about the chance to again meet visionary Dutch planting designer, Piet Oudolf on his home turf …
Tag: naturalistic planting
Grassendaggen: A Fall Epiphany at Hummelo
There comes a moment in every voyage when you know you’ve arrived. And that’s how I felt on my first-ever visit to the private dream garden of Piet and Anja Oudolf on ‘Grass Days’, one Saturday morning in early September 2009.
Dutch Master: Piet’s Garden at the TBG
Seeing the New Perennial planting at the Toronto Botanical Garden for the first time was like discovering a Rosetta stone of modern garden design. The day I saw it, the Entry Garden Walk had been newly planted and the perennial beds looked like an immense puzzle, with each plant poking up its head like a clue.
Home Ground: The Uncottage Garden
I’m raising the curtain on something of a secret world.
It’s where for the past decade and more, I’ve immersed myself from early spring until late fall in the making of a different kind of garden. Mine is a naturalistic garden – designed to emulate something of the spirit and feeling of nature itself. And in many ways, the plantings look as if they have simply materialized over time.
Nothing could be further from the truth.