International &nbsp:

Designers/Gardens/Organizations

Coen Jansen Vaste Planten

Dutch nurseryman/plant breeder, wonderful plant photography in specialty plants.

Gardens Illustrated

Wonderful cutting edge garden magazine from the U.K. – wintertime inspiration.

Dan Pearson Studio

English landscape and garden designer/author with international reputation for design and planting excellence, naturalistic planting design.

Piet Oudolf

Dutch garden designer/plant breeder/author Piet Oudolf, the major figure in the founding of the “New Perennial Movement”, many public projects in the U.S, world renowned nursery in the Netherlands.

Noel Kingsbury

English garden designer/author, co-authored several books with Piet, dedicated to the promotion of naturalistic garden design through ongoing science/research and outreach.

Schau- und Sichtungsgarten Hermannshof e.V.

A place to see successful examples of new directions in planting design, especially in naturalistic planting style, focus on high impact-low-maintenance plantings, Germany. Piet’s favorite garden. Your enjoyment of wildflowers and other plants should make an important contribution to your feeling at home on this planet. We are growing increasingly aware that our ability to function well as individuals, and as members of social groups, depends to a large extent on our sense of belonging. At a time when social changes are bewilderingly rapid and uncertain, familiarity with the natural environment especially when enhanced by field work with plants provides a valuable anchor in reality. In addition, of course, your field work can be a source of endless pleasure because it deals with the beauty of nature. Roland C. Clement, Newcombe’s Wildflower Guide And we love flowers. In fact, we spend millions on them. We offer them as tributes. We give them to each other in times of greatest crisis or joy. Our passion for them may reflect a need for the fruits and other foods that they signal. Or, you may believe that our passion for flowers reflects God’s wisdom and benevolence in creating us to appreciate diversity. Michael L. Rosenzweig, Win-Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species Can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise We are already running the whole earth, whether we admit it or not. To run it consciously and effectively, we must admit our role and even embrace it. We must temper our romantic notion of untrammeled wilderness and find room next to it for the more nuanced notion of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden, tended by us. Emma Marris, Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World She minced no words when talking about the effects of suburban landscapes on the natural world: You can’t run a supermarket on just bread, and you can’t run an ecosystem on just lawn. Lawns and foundation plantings are a lot simpler then the landscapes they replace. Simpler in this sense is synonymous with impoverished. Douglas W. Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself. It is an opening into the process of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue. Andy Goldsworthy, A Collaboration With Nature Traditionally, the way plants were organized in parks and gardens reflected a culture that liked to order and discipline nature. Contemporary planting design is not only freer, but also seeks to reflect nature. It also addresses our concerns about how we garden sustainably and in partnership with nature. Noel Kingsbury, Planting: A New Perspective He’s gotten away from the soft pornography of the flower. He’s interested in the life cycle, how plant material ages over the course of the year, and how it relates to the plants around it. Like a good marriage, his compositions must work well together as its members age. New York Times, A Landscape in Time, Dying Heroically in reference to Piet Oudolf Bookmark: Resources Contemporary Naturalistic Native Planting Resources: http://oudolf.com/ http://www.danpearsonstudio.com]]>