Dream Plants for the Natural Garden

Distinguished garden designer Henk Gerritsen was born in Utrecht in the Netherlands. He trained as an artist and made his living as a painter before turning to garden design. He now writes regularly for gardening magazines in Holland, Germany and the US, and has had several books published. His best-known garden design project in the UK is the reconstruction of the Waltham Place gardens in Berkshire. He also started the Priona Gardens in Schuinesloot in the Netherlands with his friend Anton Schlepers. Henk's gardening philosophy is to respect the full cycle of life in a garden, allowing wild and cultivated plants to grow side by side in natural-looking environments; rather than battling disease and decay, 'troublesome' weeds and 'pests', he prefers to compromise, considering them an essential part of the beauty of the garden. He never uses chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

In this book, pioneering garden designers Henk Gerritsen and Piet Oudolf describe their special choice of ideal plants, perennials, bulbs, grasses, ferns and small shrubs. An ideal plant is one that is both beautiful and robust, performing reliably with very little input from the gardener. Complete growing information is provided for each plant along with advice on how to use it to best effect. Gerritsen and Oudolf have a genuinely innovative approach to gardening. Rather than striving for big, bold masses of colorful blooms that are vigorously pruned back as soon as they have finished flowering, the authors choose plants chiefly for their form - leaves, flower heads and stems included - which means they retain their natural beauty through all the seasons.