Links and Research
For more about my research into long-term perennial performance, go to Research at the bottom of this page.
Colleagues
Sheffield University’s Landscape Department is a world focus for work on naturalistic planting design.
Professor James Hitchmough has his own site. Dr. Nigel Dunnett is also very active in this area, as well as being the UK’s leading green roof expert. Tracy DiSabato Aust is one of the most dynamic experimental practitioners in gardening today, and a reminder that we ignore the American Midwest at our peril! Also check out Roy Diblck.
I work with several leading garden and plant photographers. Andrea Jones is one of the world’s very best.
Thinking and talking about gardens Along with a growing number of others I am keen to promote discussion about gardens and gardening – their culture and philosophy. Not just something to keep the chattering classes busy over their chardonnay but something to try to make gardens better. The book Vista- The Culture and Politics of the Garden which Tim Richardson and I co-edited was the first blast of what has become quite a movement. Tim and I have also co-chaired a series of events at London's Garden Museum - The Vista Debates; some of these have been recorded and are available on the Gardens Illustrated website. Following our lead, Thinking Gardens was set up as a website which aims to encourage more of us to make the intellectual leap.
Gardens to visit
I am often asked about gardens or parks to visit which reflect the ‘new perennial’ style of planting. Here are the best:
Germany
Sichtungsgarten Hermannshof. Weinheim an der Bergstraße, Baden-Württemberg
. A nineteenth century villa garden in the centre of a pretty little town, open daily as a public park. A huge range of habitat-based plantings, small enough for domestic gardeners to relate to. Prairie-inspired drifts of perennials made by director Cassian Schmidt are of particular interest in late summer. Some of the most innovative and valuable research on planting design and maintenance is being carried on here. Open daily, all year, 10:00-18:00. Babostraße
Westpark, Munich
. Pretty much the jewel in the crown. Vast, full of all sorts of joys and inspirations for anyone interested in public space. The most spectacular planting is the ‘steppe’ dry zone at the far western end. Open daily all year. Westendstraße/Hansastraße. U-Bahn Westpark
Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan, Freising, Bavaria
. Very much a plant collection and teaching garden but lovely none the less – in fact some very clever and subtle planting design. Great place to learn about perennials. Freising is a nice little town too, with fab Roccoco cathedral. Open daily, April – Oct. 9:00-18:00.
Grugapark, Essen, Nordrhein Westfalen.
One of these vast public parks built originally for a garden show. All sort of interesting gardens including large naturalistic perennial beds. Open daily, 9:00-dusk.
Netherlands
Kwekerij Oudolf,
Hummelo, Netherlands
. Piet
and Anja Oudolf’s private garden and nursery. Perenial lovers are
always in ecstasy, and even Roy Strong liked it – “wonky baroque”
in his words. Website has details of garden openings.
Parks in Amstelveen – De Braak, Jac P. Thijsse
. A
fascinating and very long running experiment in native plant
management, with a wonderful balance between nature and aesthetics.
Open daily, all year.
England
Holbrook Gardens. Tiverton, Devon
One of the best examples of ‘New Perennial’ planting in Britain, very much inspired by Hermannshof and other German plantings. Plenty of other interesting and experimental plantings too, with a very good nursery attached. Sampford Peverell, Tiverton, Devon EX16 7EN 01884 821164
Scotland
Cambo House, Fife A striking and very enjoyable version of the New Perennial style. Head Gardener Elliott Forsyth has laid out extensive borders in the old walled garden based on a number of habitats and themes. Its design heritage is clearly continental Europe, but there is plenty of his own thinking too. Open daily, 10-5.
USA
Northwind,
a nursery and garden in southern Wisconsin, where Roy Diblick is in
charge of perennial and wildflower production is a real centre of
excellence for the Midwest. It would be a great garden even if it
were in Gloucestershire. Roy is one of the most innovative and
insightful of American gardeners.
Chicago's
Lurie Garden
and New York's Highline
are well-known Oudolf creations.
The One Drop at a Time project at 168, Elm Avenue, in the Chicago suburbs, is an innovative domestic scale rain garden developed by landscape architect Marcus de la Fleur.
France
Jardin de Berchigranges in the Vosges mountains is incredibly beautiful and
inventive, with many imaginative touchtes, wonderful planting,
inspiring eco-architecture and some very innovative hard-scaping
using wood where many might have used stone or cement. My kind of
garden.
Other gardens
Lower House is a local garden (Hay on Wye) I have long admired and
watch grow more sophisticated every year. They also have a really
lovely Bed and Breakfast business.
Veddw by Anne
Wareham and Charles Hawes
have been trying to provoke more of us to do more interesting things
in our gardens, and indeed to provoke us generally; their very
inventive garden is at Devauden in the Wye Valley.
Nurseries
I used to run one, so I know what I am looking at! There seem to be so many now, far more than when I was potting up, writing a catalogue and piling plants into an old Initial Towels laundry van, to get to plant sales up and down the country. Yet few really push the boat out with new plant selections. Here are some that do:
Crûg Farm Plants. Bleddyn and Sue Wynne-Jones continue to astonish with a terrific range of plants, much propagated from wild-collected seed. Going to their nursery is a bit like landing on Mars – so dramatic is a lot of what they are collecting. Designers should be using this material much more. And they now do Mail Order. Hurray!
Cotswold Garden Flowers Bob Brown, who I think looks astonishingly like a large garden gnome, runs a nursery with a huge range of really good plants: divided between easy and reliable herbaceous plants, and more specialist ‘plantsman’ species. There is a lot here you won’t find elsewhere. Bob’s catalogue too is simply one of the best.
Pan-Global Plants. Hugh Grant look-alike Nick Macer runs a nursery in the picturesque village of Frampton-on-Severn, with a very exciting range of herbaceous and shrubby plants, many of which you will not find elsewhere. Nick has an exceptionally good eye for good new plants.
Sampford Shrubs/Holbrook Garden in Devon not only offers a wide and interesting range of plants but also has a garden inspired by contemporary German naturalistic design. Lots to inspire and instruct here. And they’ve got a strawbale shed!
Sarastro in Austria (nearest town Passau in Germany) is a superb nursery with display gardens, real fun garden walls, surrealist sempervivums and much more.
Other Craftspeople
Jonathan Garratt is a very imaginative potter who works with terracotta made in a timber-fired kiln. In recent years he has branched out into the field of ‘garden punctuation’ – terracotta pieces which can be used to create surprise and witty effects in the garden. Don’t expect ‘safe’ or ‘tasteful’ – his work can sometimes be quite edgy and spiky.
Research
I had some funding from an EU project in 2009-10, which enabled me to design a questionnaire to encourage gardeners to share information about long-term plant performance - issues like longevity, level of spread etc. I have written up a 'lite' version of the report in The Hardy Plant; you can also see the full report. There is also a shortened version of the report in the June 2011 issue of The Plantsman (this link will take you to the June issue page, scroll down and you will find a pdf of the article). Also, I love to hear from anybody who might want to participate in future research.
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