tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.comments2024-03-04T20:37:43.516-08:00Noel's Garden Blog Noel Kingsburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09443137231998907024noreply@blogger.comBlogger1126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-25654033698550672492018-08-07T14:54:58.712-07:002018-08-07T14:54:58.712-07:00I agree that naturalistic or new perennial plantin...I agree that naturalistic or new perennial planting is mostly being used piecemeal as it suits people to incorporate it into their established planting. As someone who has always back-gardened but who has recently acquired a much larger garden (6acres) and begun to read up about newer concepts of planting, I can sympathise with this. It takes a missionary zeal to dig out your whole garden and start again, as well as considerable expense. And people find it difficult to get away from the idea that their garden must put on a show, a display of choice plants. And it is only too easy, and cheaper, to just buy one of something you fancy at the garden centre rather than plan a season in advance, buying or growing 5-10 of several different things. Also I think that not many people know enough about plants to know what makes a successful plant community. You could just end up with everybody using the same very small tried-and-tested range of plants. But that would be a start, I guess. The naturalistic style is gradually becoming more widespread and familiar - particularly maybe in urban sustainable planting.<br />I would take issue with your comments about conceptual art though! The analogy with gardening is a good one, but amateur artists don't imitate conceptual art because they don't understand it (I would even venture to suggest that you don't understand it!) and with art as with gardening people like what they are familiar with and understand. (Unless they want to be fashionable of course. Even some gardeners are trying to be conceptual!) The avant-garde usually takes several generations to become familiar and acceptable. Amateurs in any area are conservative because they don't have the knowledge and understanding to be anything else; for most people gardening is a very part time hobby and they don't conceptualise it much at all. They just want something conventionally attractive to go with their house that friends and relations will find acceptable. Just as you don't see conceptual art as progressive and developmental and might prefer a portrait or landscape in your sitting room!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04802375928641071120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-33653513609236906762018-08-04T11:10:44.442-07:002018-08-04T11:10:44.442-07:00Noel,
After a trip to Holland three years ago to s...Noel,<br />After a trip to Holland three years ago to see Piet Oudolf’s garden and Mien Ruy’s garden I returned home to my garden and began ripping out over grown shrubs and replacing them with perennials. I actually just this week wrote a post about it: https://donstathamblog.com/<br /><br />I have read many books on the New perennial movement and watched a number of lectures including a few of yours on Piet O and also the making of the Olympic Park gardens in London, 2012 with Nigel Dunnet, James Hitchmough and Sarah Price. I am very much moved as a designer and primarily a gardener to make wilder more natural looking gardens and I try and use as many natives as I can. I am an artist/ painter so I don’t limit my material to just natives. I ve been slow to add grasses to the planting because here in Upstate NY I am surrounded by fields of grasses. Unlike in Europe we are trying to carve out from the wild, a tame space. If I didn’t do some mowing the hawthorns, rosa multiflorous, and other thugs would take over the garden. I’ve noticed the plantings with mostly perennials don’t look wild enough without the grasses. I think planting in just blocks of perennials looks dated, and the wilder more painterly the plantings look the better. In terms of designing for clients, I encourage them to look at gardens that are laid in the New Perennial style. I think as you have reported before there are many directions going on at the moment: the idea of plant communities, going strictly native and the New perennial movement. I am still trying to figure it all out what makes sense to me, but I think the movement towards wilder gardens is the direction of the day. <br />Best, DonDon Stathamhttps://donstathamblog.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-60008660684693297782018-08-03T14:59:37.521-07:002018-08-03T14:59:37.521-07:00Thanks for an interesting blog, Noel. I just saw ...Thanks for an interesting blog, Noel. I just saw the Piet O. documentary, so your view was of great interest to me. I’ve followed his work for many years, from a great though admiring distance. Just as you said, the scale is off for most of us. I live on less than 1/4 acre of hilly urban property in Raleigh, NC, the “City of Oaks”. Sure, I’d love to grow (and I do try) all the ornamental grasses and wonderful perennials developed over the past 20-30 years. But I don’t have acres of flat, sunny Dutch farmland. Yet I admire the naturalistic look and try hard to achieve it in the few sunny spots in my yard. I sure don’t have room for the 57,000 perennials that one of Piet’s designs necessitated! It’s fun to dream, though.JMEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11235421971234871871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-15285771749716328472018-08-03T12:40:09.230-07:002018-08-03T12:40:09.230-07:00Thanks Noel. Great post, as usual, and thanks for ...Thanks Noel. Great post, as usual, and thanks for giving me, and my blog/post a name check. I think my Masters dissertation, along with meeting with so many people in the 'New Perennial' arena, left me with more questions than answers. I'm very mixed as to whether the naturalistic, ecological, sustainable aesthetic will ever find a proper home in the average English garden. Personally, I would always prefer shrub-sized herbaceous material over a shrub any day of the week, but as long as you have many hortic commentators telling we Brits that we need a shrub layer, changes will be very slow. I guess we must admit to a real horticultural divide... there's those who plonk and shrub, a conifer and a rose here and there... and then there's those who prefer to look a little deeper into things. The sad thing is, with gardens as a natural art form, the deeper you go, the more beauty you reveal. Thank you, for all your hard work and inspiration. Marcle jardinierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08988723205111769166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-23695448301950885402018-08-02T23:47:42.492-07:002018-08-02T23:47:42.492-07:00Hello Noel,
I found this a very interesting articl...Hello Noel,<br />I found this a very interesting article.<br />As gardeners who had the benefit of taking part in one of your workshops, I can confirm it had a significant effect on how we continued to develop our garden - possibly because of my simultaneous discovery of the complex ecology of a typical UK hay meadow - not just plant diversity and interaction, but fungi and invertebrates all involved in the most amazing symbiotic and parasitic existences. But also creating communities which constantly shift from season to season, and invariably provide huge aesthetic pleasure during their peak season. As you know we'd already been shifting our garden planting towards insect friendly flowers, on the basis that this is key to creating such diverse and stable, yet mobile, plant communities. I've thought for years that the plant hunters who've brought the UK plant novelties from around the globe, and more recently the plant breeders who throw out variants, completely ignore this BIG other half of the very raison d'etre for flowers on plants. The current RHS Pollintor friendly logo being a frequently poorly researched guide to helpful plants in this regard, and I suspect an eagerly seized marketing aid to the public. Still things are moving in the right direction. <br />Having just begun to do more formal bumblebee surveys in both our garden and meadows ( thanks to the great work of Bumblebee conservation Trust) it confirms the huge value that "well" planted gardens can have for our native insects, and it has also thrown up more examples of native insect communities focused around single UK native plant species. In this case the fantastic Common Knapweed - a garden worthy perennial if ever there was one. (Google Varley's research on gall flies and ichneumon wasps for an example = and this observation and research was carried out 80 years ago!!).<br />The final point about such naturalistic or even ecological planting is, I suspect, that although it can be time consuming in its creation, as communities establish over the medium to longer term, provided one understands and can recognise the many plants which build them up at all stages of their development, the input costs in terms of time and money actually reduce, compared with more conventional perennial borders - great indeed for ageing gardeners!<br />Best wishes<br />Julian Wormald Grumpy Hobbithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01656043443833790496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-19195150536525726692018-08-02T13:54:55.648-07:002018-08-02T13:54:55.648-07:00A wonderful piece of writing; intelligent, insight...A wonderful piece of writing; intelligent, insightful, and spot-on. <br /><br />There is another dimension to this question. What would "new perennial" plantings look like outside of the mesic climate where they are traditionally found? How do the concepts of the "new perennial" movement apply,for example, to plantings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or for that matter Athens or Palermo? I'd love to know.<br /><br />Again,a great thought provoking piece.Ed Morrowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16782906035672660603noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-49047753249053463342018-06-25T08:17:59.793-07:002018-06-25T08:17:59.793-07:00What a bizarre tirade against such a positive move...What a bizarre tirade against such a positive movement. I feel like I read one of these a month. While it's clearly super hip to rail against horticulture's modern attempts to function ecologically rather than harmfully, there's actual science on both sides of the debate right now, and the above post handily ignores all of it. <br /><br />I'll happily duel papers if you're inclined Noel, but is that really what you were hoping to get out of this post? To go to bat for industrial agriculture? To malign the attempts of many of us to create gardens that provide habitat? <br /><br />Certainly, you're welcome to define your work with any terminology you choose, and I'd agree that "naturalistic" is a far better choice for you. But why the unfounded vitriol for the work the rest of us are doing? I'm sincerely curious. <br /><br />- RebeccaRebothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02590018624363509039noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-31554715572449136292018-06-25T01:37:02.572-07:002018-06-25T01:37:02.572-07:00Why do you hate raised beds? Why do you hate raised beds? Jacquetta Menziesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-27092309111549258102018-06-25T00:32:41.858-07:002018-06-25T00:32:41.858-07:00I really like your blog.. very nice colors & t...I really like your blog.. very nice colors & theme.<br />Did you design this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for <br />you? Plz answer back as I'm looking to design my own blog and would like <br />to find out where u got this from. many thanksAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-6674099413677494562018-06-24T16:43:22.156-07:002018-06-24T16:43:22.156-07:00Thanks for sharing your thoughts on nokia reviews....Thanks for sharing your thoughts on nokia reviews. RegardsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-2933251777812061462018-06-23T12:08:38.068-07:002018-06-23T12:08:38.068-07:00Very interesting.I will look her book up. But....w...Very interesting.I will look her book up. But....what is it about raised beds that you so dislike?dwptnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-51627079248545999992018-06-23T01:25:59.375-07:002018-06-23T01:25:59.375-07:00Spot-on Noel! Just a small note - the term ‘enhan...Spot-on Noel! Just a small note - the term ‘enhanced nature’ is actually mine, and used a lot by James now - coming from the title of one of our conferences. - Nature Enhanced. Always good to be clear on the derivations! Nigel Dunnetthttp://www.nigeldunnett.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-58151991243456846332018-06-21T06:36:30.138-07:002018-06-21T06:36:30.138-07:00Yes. "Gardens are not natural and it is high ...Yes. "Gardens are not natural and it is high time to stop pretending that they are. They are a regimented version of nature which we make because we like the outcome, and which make us feel good."<br /><br />Unfortunately, the entire planet is now a garden, and we've decided we know more than other species and other ecosystems. Benjamin Vogthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10661489036836711335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-16768793560820276292018-06-16T14:20:13.044-07:002018-06-16T14:20:13.044-07:00Yes very good article identifying the main problem...Yes very good article identifying the main problems surrounding head gardener positions. For me I've always felt that head gardeners have to get involved in too many distracting events (sadly a major part of the job) when their skills are primarily as gardeners and that trend seems to continue. As a consequence you can get inferior gardeners/placed in top positions who tick the boxes on the income generation side. I understand the need for income but really there has to be a balance to create a great garden with a great all round team and management structure to achieve. With all places of work that's difficult to get right. Volunteers can be great but sometimes I felt they were introduced to cover up operational shortfalls when really it was more important to get the existing staff working more effectively. So the management who brought them in just created another set of difficulties. Of course vollies can also breathe new life into a place but it's a disappointing trend that makes me as a professional gardener feel that skilled gardening is undervalued. Clive fosternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-9651180482069442322018-06-10T09:28:48.376-07:002018-06-10T09:28:48.376-07:00Again, great blog Noel. I totally agree with you. ...Again, great blog Noel. I totally agree with you. I’m a self-employed ‘maintenance’ gardener who works closely with both my gardens and my clients. I also do a lot of creative development and border design to help move the gardens along a bit. As i’ve always said, to have a great garden, all you need is a great gardener. In so many respects, I don’t even know if gardens can be designed. For this reason, I can’t neither watch nor go to Chelsea! I’ve worked in so many private gardens and I can always tell those that were originally designed: as an experienced gardener you can just tell. They have the whiff of sterility about them. The gardens I work in are those that have been created by interested, plant-loving owners… created and developed over a long time…. created through nurture, care, skill, and dare I say ‘love’ and coupled with a desire to create something beautiful. Only experienced and skilled gardeners know how plants behave; how they socialise with others and how they can combine to make beautiful bedfellows. Love your posts Noel. Keep it up! MarcMarcs Gardenshttp://marcsgardens.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-53365911492997684452018-06-09T04:26:31.442-07:002018-06-09T04:26:31.442-07:00I can't imaging the amount of work required to...I can't imaging the amount of work required to maintain a large estate / trust as you mentioned.The poor sod who sign's on as head gardener would have his hands full indeed. I have seen some instances where the head gardener has actually knowledgeable volunteers to work with that is successful. I think just inviting any one in the neighbourhood to show up with a trowel would be a disaster. There was a post recently from a man Tony Spencer about volunteers going to help plant at the ( I believe ) Delaware Botanical garden , A Piet Oudolf et al Project , experienced volunteers were doing all the planting. So sometime it works. Can't imagine the logistics of planting a space that large.Andrew Peakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-88406173286425187162018-06-09T03:11:32.354-07:002018-06-09T03:11:32.354-07:00What a wonderful crusading post. Absolutely spot o...What a wonderful crusading post. Absolutely spot on in every respect. Lets hope some organisations and owners are listening. Unfortunately our profession does not have much clout these days.Roger Brook - No Dig Gardenerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16210160273591839142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-51348564466420449872018-06-07T23:38:18.921-07:002018-06-07T23:38:18.921-07:00Great article as usual Noel.
I have the pleasure...Great article as usual Noel. <br /><br />I have the pleasure of working in a private garden designed by a chelsea gold medal wining designer but it is the efforts and dedication of the head gardener that fulfil the owners and designers vision for the garden. <br /><br />Fortunately the owner recognises and values our input, rare in this day and age, and the garden would not be a success with just a good design.<br /><br />This is not always the case as you have indicated.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11821741851469137178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-89531625656331808862018-06-07T23:37:47.328-07:002018-06-07T23:37:47.328-07:00Great article as usual Noel.
I have the pleasure...Great article as usual Noel. <br /><br />I have the pleasure of working in a private garden designed by a chelsea gold medal wining designer but it is the efforts and dedication of the head gardener that fulfil the owners and designers vision for the garden. <br /><br />Fortunately the owner recognises and values our input, rare in this day and age, and the garden would not be a success with just a good design.<br /><br />This is not always the case as you have indicated.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11821741851469137178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-50841642775427938672018-06-07T22:28:47.739-07:002018-06-07T22:28:47.739-07:00This is a tragedy. How short-sighted the people i...This is a tragedy. How short-sighted the people in charge are. He is obviously a treasure.<br /><br />I am so sorry!<br /><br />PenelopePenelope Bianchihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07863486521957665886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-26575880046572601202018-06-07T14:29:43.702-07:002018-06-07T14:29:43.702-07:00That sounds sadly like the other side of another g...That sounds sadly like the other side of another garden blog I read. The back story. And the wonderfully unusual garden.Diana Studerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12286066768376135880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-46014127045182213552018-05-01T09:30:48.626-07:002018-05-01T09:30:48.626-07:00Portugal is a beautiful country. Nature is beautif...Portugal is a beautiful country. Nature is beautiful there. Good luck.Gardenhttps://gardenseedsmarket.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-12788084500985709492018-03-27T19:35:38.405-07:002018-03-27T19:35:38.405-07:00I found this article about the fires with eucalypt...I found this article about the fires with eucalyptus trees and i thought it was in tune to your story<br /> https://baynature.org/article/burning-question-east-bay-hills-eucalyptus-flammable-compared/<br /><br />ome 600 members of genus Eucalyptus dominate forests across Australia. There, the debate isn’t over whether the trees are flammable, says David Bowman, a fire ecologist at the University of Tasmania, but about whether the trees have simply evolved to survive fire, or whether they actually promote fire as a way to snuff out competitors. “It’s an amazing just-so story,” he says of the possibility: “Eucalypts evolved to burn their neighbors.”<br /><br />It’s clear that fire benefits the trees. “For most eucalypts, fire was not a destroyer but a liberator,” writes fire ecologist Stephen Pyne in his book Burning Bush. Many species of eucalyptus both tolerate fire, hiding from the flames behind thick bark, and depend on it to open their seed pods. Fire often even seems to have a rejuvenating effect on the trees. After a fire, many eucalypt species will sprout epicormic shoots along their entire trunks. In the event that a fire does destroy the aboveground parts of the tree, it can send up new shoots from lignotubers, nutrient-filled organs hidden among its roots.Curtis Westnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-78782180614340777952018-03-11T22:04:01.979-07:002018-03-11T22:04:01.979-07:00It's so interesting to read your thoughts and ...It's so interesting to read your thoughts and ideas on our country and it's vegetation. The things which we who live here take for granted, you see with fresh eyes. Like our Ferns and tough hardy forest verge or coastal plants such as Coprosma, Muhlenbeckia, Phormium (flax), Cordyline australis (Cabbage trees), Pseudopanax crassifolius (Lancewoods) and Hebes. These are the tougher and more sculptural plants which have found their way to popularity in northern hemisphere gardens. They are often the Jurassic park type plants of ancient origin, which stand out for their primitve, textural and sculptural appearance. Yet these are only a fraction of New Zealand native plants. <br /> When I think of native vegetation, I think of our native forests - the huge trees of the Nothofagus forests of Fiordland close to Glenorchy where you stayed. The delicate foliage of these huge evergreen beeches through which sunlight filters so exquisitely and from which long lichens swing lightly in the breeze, is like no other forest, with it's understory of ground ferns. Also the great tracts of lowland Podocarp forest of the West Coast of the South Island with it's great Rimu, Miro, Totara and Kahikitea rising high up from the still murky waters of the swamp. This is primeval forest! Many of these pine species have juvenile forms, which are quite beautiful in infancy, like the brown lacyness of young Kahikitea. and the delicate weeping foliage of young Rimu. It is these juvenile forms which form the understory of this lowland forest, as well as tree and ground ferns. But alas, apart from the hardiest tree fern Dicksonia squarrosa, most of the true forest giants would not cut it in the Northern Hemisphere. They need their own rain forest micro-climates, and ecology to survive. Perhaps, Noel, you will have to come back some day to explore further. We would be delighted to see you and Jo again.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223294603002782762.post-83609904645724191012018-03-10T00:15:28.628-08:002018-03-10T00:15:28.628-08:00at one point Jo pointed at some plants by the side...<i>at one point Jo pointed at some plants by the side of the road and exclaimed “it looks like some posh garden designer's been in and done it all”. </i><br /><br />That's a brilliant observation. I do think Australasian common areas and greens really do have the New Perennial movement beat for an uncannily sophisticated arrangement that nature actually had (something of*) a hand in.<br /><br />*colonizers and colonials lent the other handSaurshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00090665102782891402noreply@blogger.com