I ’m a fellow member of a generation of gardener that was raise to venerate the English horticultural custom . The impingement of this has been utilitarian aesthetically – British nurseryman such as Christopher Lloyd had much to learn us about the use of color and the construction of artistically advanced perennial and mixed borders . But meanwhile the Germans , whom American gardeners have largely ignored , were exploring the crossroad of esthetics with environmental science , develop a very distinctive style that we could well yield to study .
As described by Cassian Schmidt , the Hermannshof style involves the bailiwick of natural habitat and then repeat them in garden pattern . This fashion is quite discrete from our American realistic planting in that it does not emphasize an exclusive consumption of aboriginal plants . Instead , as I understood it , the German custom , at least as expressed at Hermannshof , will combine plants from similar habitats all around the world . Thus , a steppe - inspired planting would be likely to let in not only plants from key Asian grasslands but also from the South African veld and North American prairies .
For this grounds the German realistic planting is not an ecological restoration but rather a first derivative . As such it does n’t declare oneself the same time value to wildlife , but it can declare oneself more aesthetically than a straight restoration . Examples of this distinction can be constitute in Piet Oudolf ’s innovation in the garden of the High Line in New York or at Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago .
It ’s significant that both these good example are set in urban localization where remodel a native planting would have been Quixotic at best . But if the German - style “ New Perennial ” gardens do not offer ecological authenticity , they can provide sustainability . If the habitat - model take is well suited to the site , then the plant drawn from habitats of this sort will all be adapt , and , experience at Hermannshof has found , tend to co - subsist comfortably . Indeed , class of studies there have found that such ecologically - enliven plantings flourish with just a fraction of the stimulant of material and DoL required by similar - sized schematic perennial plantings .
This is a compromise deserving considering .
All exposure courtesy of Cassian Schmidt
