Planting: A New Perspective
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. --Carol Haggas