Native plant garden, but designer

In the early days of designing my garden to qualify for the front yard recognition in Richmond Hill, I came across the idea of planting “what was meant to be”.

I loved native plants, their elegant, dainty style, but I was competitive, I needed them to perform. In my search for creating the perfect colourful meadow, I fell in love with Piet Oudolf’s work because of the show-stopping wow factor, which truly pushed the boundaries of how amazing a meadow can look – the meadow of dreams.

Piet’s designs place a large emphasis on structure and using plants that look good in all seasons to create dramatic, colourful meadows and woodlands. I scraped through his books and design sketches to compile a list of North American native plants with these characteristics.

Most plants are linked for your convenience to my favourite tool, the Missouri Botanical database – please note the sun and water requirements, and toxicity when placing plants in your designs. For plants listed as “spp.”, multiple species are recommended.

Plants marked with a “♥” are Piet’s favourites, and are seen in most of his installations.

Now you can install your very own Piet Oudolf-tier garden that is also native, promotes biodiversity, and replenishes the local seed bank.

Use can-plant.ca to find local native plant nurseries!

Contents

Palettes:

• Flowers
• Grasses
• Bulbs
• Ferns
• Trees
• Shrubs
• Vines

Aggressive native plants

Flower Palette

Grass Palette

Bulb Palette

Fern Palette

Tree Palette

Shrub Palette

Vine Palette

Aggressive native plants that Piet suggests to remove:

• Horsetail
• Plantain
• Mint (unless it is in an isolated location)
• Tall goldenrod varieties