Planting A new perspective

Review by Choice Review

Noted landscape architects Oudolf, famous for his contributions to the development of Lurie Garden, a green roof garden over a Chicago parking garage, and for New York's High Line park, and Kingsbury bring a naturalistic perspective to garden design. The look is "an artistically stylized version of natural habitats." To this end, the authors provide valuable information on characteristic appearances and habitat needs of various species. The plant directory, which covers physical qualities, foliage architecture, flowering season structural interest, and longevity, etc., of many species, is especially useful. The book is a descriptive formulary for a planting style that emphasizes a plant community rather than an arrangement of individual plants. How useful this specific point of view is to an ordinary gardener with limited space is questionable. It would indeed be helpful to landscapers with urban commissions or to estate owners. The many color photos emphasize large-scale plantings, giving the impression of a temperate-climate version of the "broad brush" planting technique of Brazil's Roberto Burle Marx in tropical South America. The book will be most useful for professionals in the field, but landscape design students would benefit from it as well. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic, two-year technical program, and professional landscape design collections. L. G. Kavaljian California State University, Sacramento

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by Booklist Review

Designers of some of the world's most distinctive gardens, Oudolf and Kingsbury bring their unrivaled expertise and iconic aesthetic sense to bear as they consider twenty-first-century trends and challenges confronting both home gardeners and landscape professionals. Faced with concerns such as sustainability, biodiversity, nature deficit, and water reclamation, they extol high-performance designs that aim to collaborate with nature rather than control it. In truth, their gardens are paragons of apparent spontaneity, exhibiting an exuberance that seems neither forced nor contrived. Through innovative plant combinations and naturalistic landscape designs, modern gardens can address contemporary opportunities such as green roofs and urban prairies with an air of casualness that belies the importance of ecologically sound planting methods. Teeming with delectable examples of the authors' signature, free-flowing gardens, the book also includes a comprehensive, at-a-glance plant directory that both private gardeners and industry professionals will find helpful. Luscious photographs and meticulous explanations of techniques and methods make this an essential reference guide and constant source of inspiration.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

European landscape architects Oudolf and Kingsbury (coauthors, Planting Design) believe 21st-century gardens are all about working with Mother Nature rather than against her. The authors are convinced that perennials are the key to a striking garden that also supports biodiversity, so not surprisingly, their latest book is all about perennials, from selecting the right ones for your soil and location to grouping and combining them in a garden. After opening with an overview of the symbiotic relationship between gardens and the ecosystem, the authors provide a detailed blueprint for how they mix and match plants to achieve maximum effects with a minimum impact on the environment. The book's gorgeous photographs of the gardens created by Oudolf-including New York City's High Line and the Lurie Garden in Chicago-effectively illustrate their design philosophy, while an included plant directory provides practical details on those varieties the authors have found most useful in their work. Verdict This is a thoughtful, insightful guide that deserves serious consideration by garden design professionals as well as anyone involved in public landscaping projects. In addition, home gardeners willing to invest the time needed to absorb the authors' thought processes will be richly rewarded with beautiful, ecologically sound gardens.-John Charles, Scottsdale P.L., AZ (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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The agenda for planting design in the twenty-first century The former nursery at Piet and Anja Oudolf's at Hummelo in the Netherlands. It is now a boldly experimental area where a range of robust perennials grow amidst a sown mix of wild pasture grasses along with various spontaneously arriving species. Only time will tell how it will work out. Plants are increasingly being recognized as a vital part of our urban and domestic environments, not just a luxury or an unnecessary--if pleasant--bit of decoration. It has long been established, for example, that the mere view of plants through a window has a beneficial effect on the human psyche, and that plants can play an important role in cleaning and purifying the air of buildings and built-up environments. Gardening, whether on the most intimate private level or the most extensive and public, involves an appreciation of and involvement with the natural world. For many people, plants may be their only point of contact with nature apart from feeling the effects of the weather. Private gardens offer the opportunity for personal choices to be made about what plants to grow and how to manage them, while designers of civic landscapes have always had the responsibility of serving the wider public interest. There is, however, a new and additional agenda for gardeners, both private and public: sustainability and the support of biodiversity. Sustainability demands that we minimize irreplaceable inputs in gardening and reduce harmful outputs, while the support of biodiversity brings a demand for wildlife-friendly planting and practices. The use of long-lived perennials in conjunction with woody plants--the approach Piet Oudolf and I have always supported--genuinely offers improved sustainability and support for biodiversity. Reducing the amount of regularly mown lawn and the unnecessary trimming of woody plants for unclear motives is surely a step forward. Creating rich garden habitats offers natural beauty close at hand, provides resources and homes for wildlife, and improves the sustainability of management. Deciding what plants to use and how to arrange them is covered by the field of planting design, which brings together a combination of technical knowledge and artistic vision. This book looks at some of the recent trends within planting design, and is aimed primarily at home gardeners, garden design and maintenance professionals, and landscape architects. There are, however, important lessons for others, such as architects, who do not use plants directly but often have to situate their work in close proximity to them, or ecologists, whose profession does not involve much design but who increasingly have a role to play in the creation and management of designed plantings. While the role of plants--and therefore planting design--is well established in the domestic garden, and is indeed absolutely crucial to its aesthetic and functional success, it has not been so well established in landscape design. Or perhaps more accurately, plants have often played a minor role in urban landscape design. Historically, for centuries the only plants used in cities were avenue trees; the nineteenth century saw the growth of urban parks, the late twentieth a much wider use of plants in urban areas--a practice to a large extent pioneered in the Netherlands. Now, however, the use of plants is increasing, particularly that of perennials and ornamental grasses, requiring greater access to technical information about plant establishment and management, and to ideas about the visual aspects of their use. Before I discuss in more detail what this book is about, it is perhaps worth looking at these new trends.   Excerpted from Planting: A New Perspective by Noel Kingsbury, Piet Oudolf All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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