- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Frances Lincoln - PGW (July 10 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0711217378
- ISBN-13: 978-0711217379
- Product Dimensions: 26.9 x 23.6 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 898 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #422,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Gardeners are moving away from tidy borders and neat velvet lawns to more expressive areas of plants grown within a natural movement of design. Who better to explain how to do this than the Dutch international garden designers, Henk Gerritsen and Piet Oudolf. Dream Plants for the Natural Garden suggests 1,200 plant species which they consider practical for the average garden. Each is give its Latin and common name with a brief description and notes of favourable conditions and flowering period.
The book covers perennials, bulbs, grasses, ferns and small shrubs, all of which the authors believe will continue growing, flowering and seeding for many years There are three main sections covering tough (perennials, grasses, ferns, bulbs and shrubs), playful (self-seeding perennials, biennials and annuals) and troublesome plants (invasive, capricious and demanding), explaining how to deal with them. Piet Oudolf has nurseries near Arnheim where he is practised in choosing plants that are easy to maintain and mainly disease resistant. Both he and Henk Gerritsen took many of the photographs that illustrate the text.
Dream Plants for the Natural Garden is an ideal reference book. Use some of the ideas to enliven your own garden or create an imaginative new one. --Judy Wyles
From Library Journal
Gerritsen and Oudolf loosely define a "natural garden" as one that contains plants that need minimal maintenance, attract wildlife, and have a "natural appearance." More than 1000 such plants are covered in this encyclopedic guide. Because the authors are garden designers practicing in Northern Europe, the plants featured are mostly suitable to cold-winter, temperate climates with summer rainfall. For other regions, many of the plants covered are unsuitable horticulturally (requiring lots of care) and environmentally (extremely invasive and ecologically destructive). Moreover, the authors support the cautious use of invasive plants, so long as gardeners are vigilantly prepared to control their growth. This advice is clearly unsound, especially considering that plants with invasive characteristics can be serious threats to local habitats. For readers interested in natural gardening, a much more regionally and environmentally appropriate resource is Natural Gardening, edited by John Kadel Boring (Time-Life, 1999). This book is not recommended. Brian Lym, City Coll. of San Francisco Lib.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
This section is devoted to all those perennials, ornamental grasses, ferns,bulbs and small shrubs that we dare promise are reliable plants which will grow and flower in all decent garden soils. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
This section is devoted to all those perennials, ornamental grasses, ferns,bulbs and small shrubs that we dare promise are reliable plants which will grow and flower in all decent garden soils. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dream Plants for the Natural Garden (Hardcover)
Dream Plants is a great book. The authers are upfront, the plants they critique are ones they have grown. While I might not agree with some of they're descriptions, I as a gardener realize that I have my own little piece of earth and they have theirs. I found it wonderful. The pictures, the layout, the descriptions, and yes, the I don't agree.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful book, a guide worthy of owning and studying...,
By
This review is from: Dream Plants for the Natural Garden (Hardcover)
This volume, taken together with Oudolf's "Designing With Plants" -- an invaluable companion -- gives the gardener an inspiring and comprehensive approach to stylish landscape design and plant selection. Taken by itself, "Dream Plants" is a not necessarily helpful guide. It's hard to make sense of it as different from any other plant selection book, as it has no context. But in consort with "Designing With Plants," the design context comes clear: one has both the key and the lock in one place -- the design guide, and the plant selection menu. With both in hand -- and the photographs are lush and suggestive, and the plans bold and clearly illuminated -- there remains plenty of obscurity throughout. But there are not many mistakes here of continuity, and so one has confidence that it is as full and reliable a depiction of natural, early 21st century garden and landscape design principles and practice one can get between two covers. Contrast this with the dreary corporate planting schemes of van Sweeden and Oehme -- not an inspiration anywhere in their so-called "Bold Romantic Gardens". With Oudolf, the reader discovers as much about the the secrets of his design pallet as can be revealed without actually having him standing over your shoulder. This book is full of mystery, which is as it should be, with detailed clues and hints in the variety of plants discussed in detail, the photographs of combinations that demonstrate his views on plant structure, appearance and sequencing, and the useful back-and-forth between the principles of garden design he favors, and the selection of plants he uses to bring it to life. I would not purchase "Dream Plants" without also purchasing "Designing With Plants." Together, they are a fabulous combination.
2.0 out of 5 stars
You need to know plants to benefit from this book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dream Plants for the Natural Garden (Hardcover)
Dutchmen Gerritsen and Oudolf label Boltonia a "troublesome, demanding plant." The same with our common wildflower Monkshood. They say that Knipofia won't survive winter. Lobelia hybrids are "only for people with green fingers." "Tierella wherryi is quite reliable when you look after it properly..." All of these plants are favorites in US gardens.And the crowning insult to American readers -- Echniacea (Purple Coneflower) is labeled "troublesome." This is one of the most popular perennials in the US! While I appreciate the design ideas of Oudolf's earlier books, this one is a bust as far as plant advice for US readers goes -- and the plant descriptions take up most of the book.
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