Gardening With Grasses

Piet Oudolf & Michael King

Editions

Review

Gardening over the past hundred years has changed surprisingly little and we still seem to be in the benign stranglehold of the Robinson-Jekyll tradition, viz. the plethora of up-market ladies who recycle the same old themes and who proffer themselves as jobbing gardeners to the mighty, and muse to the masses.

There is inevitably a call for a new style (though the examples at the 1999 Chelsea Flower Show were, frankly, embarrassing).

In the absence of the new Messiah, Piet Oudolf, who (with Michael King) has written this tome, can claim to be a contender.

The distinctive appearance of grasses (sedges and bamboos are generally considered with them) makes them invaluable plants, often in bold combinations, and the authors have provided a very useful catalogue of hundreds of varieties and cultivars as well a list of suppliers (I recommend the remarkable nurseryman John Coke at Green Farm Plants).

This is certainly one of the most inspiring books to come out of new naturalistic gardening. - review by Stewart Grimshaw