Kelly Norris - Plants with Style: A Plantsmans Choices for a Vibrant, 21st-Century Garden

KELLY NORRIS

PLANTS with STYLE

A PLANTSMANS CHOICES FOR A VIBRANT, 21ST-CENTURY GARDEN

TIMBER PRESS PORTLAND, OREGON

Copyright 2015 by Kelly Norris. All rights reserved.

All photographs are by the author, with the following exceptions: Phlox Forever Pink (page 122) by Jim Ault; Plantago major Purple Perversion (page 234) by Joseph Tychonievich. Lettering by Michelle Leigh

Published in 2015 by Timber Press, Inc.

The Haseltine Building

133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450

Portland, Oregon 97204-3527

timberpress.com

Cover and text design by Michelle Leigh

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Norris, Kelly D., author.

Plants with style: a plantsmans choices for a vibrant, 21st-century garden/Kelly Norris.First edition.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-60469-401-7

1. Plants, Ornamental. 2. Gardening. I. Title.

SB404.9.N67 2015

635.9dc23

2015019577

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

A MANIFESTO FOR MODERN GARDENING

Landscaping is not a complex and difficult art to be practiced only by high priests. It is logical, down-to-earth, and aimed at making your plot of ground produce exactly what you want and need from it.

Thomas Church, Gardens Are for People (1955)

This book takes a sassy, punchy, irreverent look at fresh plant choices for modern gardens, with sidelong glances, along the way, at how gardening is more relevant than ever to our quality of life. If gardening is about the experience, it stands to reason we should all be planting things worth experiencing. Such plants make a garden our own, and this book is about plants with style, those plants that matter. Its pages are for people who crave beauty and plant-filled spaces. Of all the gardens Ive had the pleasure of visiting, the best prevailed because of what grew: plants, after all, are (or should be) the very essence of a gardens style.

Modern eclecticism is the 21st-century waywith access to almost anything, we have transcended the strictures of period and form. Our sense of style is expressed by the things we love, no matter their vintage or source. Unsurprisingly then, this book is a smattered collection, viewed through a gardens architecture, with chapters considering environment, structure, emblems, vignettes, and essential kitsch as lenses on an endless array of optionstoo many plants, too little time. Through this globetrotting, zone-straddling look at plants with style, I hope one thing becomes cleara passion for vibrant, A-list plants is inextricably linked to my hope for a more beautiful, functional planet.

The modern eclectic garden isnt easily defined. Its earnest, enthusiastic, and unbounded. It grows from a kind of purposeful materialismplants matter because they tell stories, reminding us of the journey and the experience of acquiring and assembling them into a space, a garden, that brings us joy. And this garden doesnt stand still. It evolves almost every day, tumbling forward headlongjust as its leaves, flowers, stems, and fruits dobecause of its plants, its ingredients. Making the 21st-century garden requires not only carefully considered ingredients but smart recipes, too. Each of the five chaptersrecipes, if you willclarifies the modern gardens components, focusing on a chic shortlist of essential plants. So begins our journey, borrowing influence and inspiration from wherever it flowers.

Its one of the elegant simplicities of modern gardeningnobody has time to fuss over things that wont grow, that fail to do what they were planted to do. Plants in your garden should thrive, not just simply survive. For too long, horticulture existed in spite of our environment, instead of honoring and respecting it. Minding ecology and reveling in regionality make for environmentally successful gardens, sustained by thoughtful choices and made beautiful with artful planting. From coast to coast and borough to borough, the wild spaces of our world, sometimes not so far from home, offer incredible inspiration. After all, horticulture in tune with our environment is more than just a talking point that sounds goodplants chosen with that idea in mind will do better, naturally.

The Victorian Border, a seasonal display at Allen Centennial Gardens on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Madison. Former director Ed Lyon nevertheless embodies with this vignette the very spirit of the 21st-century garden: it is alive with vibrant color, contrast, and motion.

Gardening with purpose is the mantra of the modern era. People garden for more than just aesthetics or sustenance. People garden with intention, a grounding force in an otherwise chaotic world, where responsibility to community and planet is at least understood. We live in times when the quick tempo of life has become something to brag about, when even our vacations are chipped away at by links to the work we left behind. We seem to find less time to savor the things we love. A garden is the best way to savor life on earth. Purposeful planting begins with investing in a gardens structure, the long-tail pleasures of a gardens evolution. Structure in the garden isnt permanent, but it is defining.

We plant what we love, from rooted trees that make for vital shade to moving parts that remind us of the rhythm of the seasonsemblems. The resulting garden is a blend of things planted as solutions and others planted with revelry, a fondness for our relationship with change. Some plants solve the challenges inherent in making beautiful gardens. Others define the spirit of the garden through an untethered passion for the beauty of the planet. Gardens should be lived in and edited often. Weeding out, pruning, and composting previous decisions polishes and refines the garden. Call it compulsive, call it obsessive, or just dub it geeky and get on with it, gardening makes for a truly rich life.

We live in a beautiful world; gardeners should know the power of planting. Great gardens deserve great plantsa choir of the most talented singers. The gardens chorus is dynamic, full of vignettes that inspire us with a beauty that is in sync with the seasons. Follow your style or taste, whatever it is, and plant a garden that is distinctly your own. Dont wait to be inspiredfind inspiration in everything. Furthermore, just as you dont have to be a fashionista to appreciate good clothing, you dont have to have botanical bona fides to grow great plants.

Geekiness has attained a sort of sex appeal in modern culture, from retro glasses and funky socks to the idolization of awkward mannerisms, rhetoric, and personalities in pop culture. Plant geeks are no exception, even if as we obsess over stamens and other minutiae, we may inadvertently intimidate the less impassioned among us. Cultivate your inner plant geekits sexy. The world needs more gardens, more beautiful spaces to unwind in and harvest from. Plant geeks cultivate the leading edge of the revolutionsometimes brandishing things deemed too kitschy for general consumption. I believe that many gardeners are in fact geeky plant collectors; they just dont know it or accept it. Dont sneakshow it off.

Finally, even as I attempt to remain practical in my treatments of the plants I celebrate in its pages, this book doesnt attempt to divulge every detail of their cultivation; rather, it is a rhapsody, a paean for a new romanticism born from passionate interaction with plants. In short, hunt up all the facts, if you want, before you commit shovel to earth, but in the end, grow plants, garden with them. To know them is to study them, and experience is the best teacher. For those so smitten, garden because you have to and hope others join you along the way.