Seasonal Border Chronicle #1
November, 2008
By Tovah Martin
A Tested Team
The team worked together before to design Manhattan’s Battery Park, but they’ve also collaborated often in the Netherlands. Piet Oudolf is renowned worldwide for his garden and nursery in Hummelo, NL where he first hatched his insightful scheme for incorporating ornamental grasses into naturalistic, plant-driven designs. Jacqueline van der Kloet’s Teagarden in Weesp, NL is also internationally recognized for her landscape designs and especially for her painterly, unplugged use of bulbs. Years ago, the two saw the potential for marrying bulb mixtures with naturalistic plantings to increase interest and rev up spring while the perennials are making headway. The more they’ve experimented with the idea, the more exciting the brew becomes. At the NYBG, not only will spring get a leg up, but the concept has been expanded to resonate throughout the year. Bulbs and perennials will reverberate nonstop from spring through autumn.Although newly installed, Piet’s perennials were already establishing their strong rubric of structure for the November planting. Indeed, the Oriental poppies were showing some precocious growth while Molina caerulea ssp. caerulea ‘Dauerstrahl’ was clothed in its flaxen flower stalks shivering in the blustery winds. Undaunted and planted about a foot between centers, the blocks of Aster frikartii ‘Monch’ were in full glory and brandishing bright purple blossoms. Many of the echinaceas (especially Piet’s introduction, ‘Fatal Attraction’) were in full blossom, as were Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ and ‘Whirlwind’. Meanwhile, the native blue mountain-mint, Pycnanthemum muticum, was still brandishing its discrete, silvery, button-like flowers. It was a pretty site to plant around.