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Piet Oudolf books

AlxNicAlxNic Posts: 259
in Garden design
If anyone has Piet Oudolf books and can give me information that would be helpful.

I am looking for design/plans and plant lists - not to copy but for ideas. It seems my choice of books would be 
  • Planting a New Perspective
  • Planting a Natural garden
I cannot 'look inside' enough of the book on Amazon to choose. Of course it would be lovely to buy all his books but then I'd have no budget for plants.
Thanks in advance - Alex (gardening in North Devon)
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Posts

  • K67K67 Posts: 2,506
    You could try your library as they can get books from other libraries

  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    'New Perspective' takes you into design principles and understanding plant communities, and the recent innovations in public planting. There is a reference table of plants with notes which would be of interest to landscape designers (planting density, tendency to spread, etc).

    I haven't got the second book but it looks like it has more in the way of photos/notes on plant varieties. Possibly better as the first book to get.

    Dream Plants for the Natural Garden is also great, more of a pure plant list book.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • AsarumAsarum Posts: 661
    Dream Plants for the Natural Garden by Henk Gerritsen and Odolf is an excellent book detailing the plants and their requirements. 
    East Anglia
  • AmphibiosAmphibios Posts: 158
    There is a list of Piet Oudolf must have 100 plants that can freely be found on the internet. 
    I’ve come across some of his planting plans on Pinterest but you could probably search for them via google. 


    First 2 are trailers about a film of his work (I really want to see it!)
     
    3rd is lecture by Noel Kingsbury about Piet. 

    Piet also has website with loads of pics of his garden in Hummello. 

    Id look up blogs of new Perennialists, naturalistic planting design. I follow lots of garden designers on Instagram also. 

    A lot of it is beyond me because I’m very new to gardening. I know what I like looking at but not clear on how to get there! 
    I also like Nigel Dunnett who did the planting of the gardens at the Olympic village and the Barbican.
  • AlxNicAlxNic Posts: 259
    Thank you all
    The Dream plants book may be where I start - I have seen some of his designs online and would like to understand that a bit more so that I know how to put the dream plants together.

    Thank you Amphibios for the links and the new search words 'new perennialist'.
    Happy gardening
  • Bright starBright star Posts: 1,153
    I follow him on instagram and the planting schemes are great, fantastic photos, also planting plans to look at too.
    Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

  • LG_LG_ Posts: 4,360
    The film was streamed free for a few days early on in lockdown. Worth seeing. I haven't watched this yet, but it's a talk by the film maker so might include some clips.
    https://youtu.be/bqP-suH_ySI
    'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
    - Cicero
  • rachelQrtJHBjbrachelQrtJHBjb Posts: 819
    I have planted semi-naturalistic gardens and schemes based largely/wholly on perennials and grasses. What are you trying to achieve, what is your site like (soil (sand, clay, loam, etc.), pH, aspect, rainfall, etc?
  • AlxNicAlxNic Posts: 259
    Hi Rachel
    Thanks for your interest. Over the last few days I have watched videos of Piet Oudolf's gardens and am waiting for the delivery of 'Dream Plants'. For the last couple of years I have moved to mostly perennial planting  and to move forward I think I need to add grasses, so that is what I am researching at the moment.

    My garden in in North Devon - fairly clayish soil I would say. Rainfall? This year wet from September until the beginning of lockdown. One side of my garden soil is permanently wet and the other side bakes to cement. The good side is at the bottom which has moist soil .
  • rachelQrtJHBjbrachelQrtJHBjb Posts: 819
    If the part that bakes like cement in summer remains free-draining in winter then you could consider any of the stipa grasses - they like dry and you could look at Stipa tenuissima (aka Nasella) and Stipa gigantea (giant oat). 'Goldfontein' is a particularly good one. If you can grow things like gaura, verbena bonariensis and silver-leaved or Mediterrean plants then you should be able to grow stipa. Deschampsia prefers a wetter soil. Miscanthus has done well for me on clay soils, though they are quite tough to split and they bulk up quickly. 

    Neil Lucas at Knoll Gardens specialises in grasses and there's a filter on the website which allows you to choose the site you plan to plan in. He also offers a range of perennials that complement the grasses. There is a good online gallery too. 

    For online inspiration you could also look at Hauser and Wirth gallery garden, Yeo Valley organic garden and Pensthorpe.
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