{"id":24,"date":"2006-11-26T07:35:43","date_gmt":"2006-11-26T14:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.remarc.com\/craig\/?p=24"},"modified":"2006-11-30T18:20:56","modified_gmt":"2006-12-01T01:20:56","slug":"great-plants-look-good-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Great plants look good dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

That title is a quote from my greatest inspiration, Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf<\/a>. I was reminded of that yesterday when I took advantage of the near-60 F temps and put together a couple of dried arrangements for the house. I had no shortage of material to choose from, both cultivated and wild. <\/p>\n

In his books (Designing with Plants<\/a>, written with Noel Kingsbury), Oudolf stresses mixing up the different forms of flowers when designing plantings — spikes and spires, buttons and globes, screens and curtains, plumes, umbells, etc.<\/p>\n

Combining good plants with a mix of these forms makes a good garden in season. Combining great plants that hold these forms into winter extend the season of interest in the garden — and provide great material for arrangements.<\/p>\n

My favorites this year include the 4-foot-long spikes of Digitalis ferruginea<\/i>, the Seuss-esque stacked globes of Phlomis tuberosa<\/i>, and the curly, hand-like spires of Veronicastrum virginicum<\/i>. Throw in some curly willow, the rampant teasel, various plumes and spikes of ornamental grasses, sedum umbells, some motherwort, hazel catkins, Verbena hastata<\/i> and Verbena bonariensis<\/i> seedheads, and goldenrod stems comoplete with galls and you’ve got and arrangement without half trying. I’ll add a picture next time I have the camera home.<\/p>\n

Kingsbury has a new book out Seedheads in the Garden<\/a>. I’ve only had a chance to skim the pictures, and was amazed how my tastes had already gravitated toward the species he includes.<\/p>\n

I’m sure I’ll post more about Oudolf when I get a chance. A similar style has arisen Germany. (See The New German Style<\/a>.) This winter I also hope to finally get around to reading Hansen and Stahl’s Perennials and their garden habitats<\/a>, translated from German in 1990, putting the ecological foundation under this aesthetic.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> Lousy pix of the arrangements.
\n\\'dried arrangements<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That title is a quote from my greatest inspiration, Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf. I was reminded of that yesterday when I took advantage of the near-60 F temps and put together a couple of dried arrangements for the house. I had no shortage of material to choose from, both cultivated and wild. In his … Continue reading “Great plants look good dead”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}