onward new perennials For information on visiting days at Piet Oudolf ’s nursery and garden at Hummelo, near Arnhem in Holland, see www.oudolf.com. October is a good time of year to see the grasses at their best. Oudolf has written several books that explain his approach to planting design. The most recent is Planting Design: Gardens in Time and Space, with Noel Kingsbury (Timber Press, 2005, $34.95). For Oudolf ’s work in public parks visit the following Web sites for information: in the USA, www.thebattery.org (planting at Battery Park is shown above); www.the highline.org; and www.millenniumpark.org. In the United Kingdom, see www.rhs.org.uk; www. scampston.co.uk; and www.pensthorpe.com. Opposite and above:Two walled gardens in the U.K. from early and late in Oudolf’s career: Bury Court, Surrey, and Scampston Hall, Yorkshire. Below: Oudolf has been known to say “Dying in an interesting way is just as important as living,” and here the globular seed heads of Eryngium yuccifolium mingled with red Sedum telephium ‘Matrona’ prove his point.
Other landmarks in the history of the New Perennials movement in the USA include the work of Oehme, van Sweden. Their massed grasses and native perennials around the Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C., was a breakthrough in the design of public landscapes that made the OvS name. The partnership went on to redefine private landscapes in the same style, subsequently dubbed The New American Garden, a look that James van Sweden has defined as “a metaphor for a meadow.” Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin is a specialist nursery closely identified with the New Perennials style. Owner Neil Diboll worked with Piet Oudolf on selecting plants for the Lurie Garden, Millennium Park in Chicago. Visit www.prairienursery.com.
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