The New Perennial Movement

I feel like my journey as a landscape designer has mirrored the growth of the native plant movement as a whole. What began as a naïve appreciate for “weeds” and other wild things became an obsession with the chaos of cottage gardens, then narrowed into pollinator gardens, rain gardens, pocket prairies, and now the stunning matrix plantings of the New Perennial Movement.

The New Perennial Movement is the name for a style of deceptively simple gardens popularized by the only landscape designer who’s basically a household name, Piet Oudolf. And although Oudolf is European, his style mimics the sweeping prairies of the American West. Not explicitly native plant gardens, his landscapes still celebrate the forms and textures of native perennials in every season. They look very natural, but they are heavily curated.

A heavily curated garden doesn’t always translate well into a residential setting. Most homeowners aren’t looking to employ a full-time horticulturist on site. In fact, the most common request I get when designing home gardens is for “low maintenance”. So is it possible to mimic the breathtaking abundance of an Oudolf-style garden on a smaller, simpler scale?

I would argue that yes, it is absolutely possible. And the secret lies in rethinking one core element of the New Perennial style: instead of carefully controlling your garden, let the plants lead the way.

Plants naturally self-organize into garden-like communities in the wild. The contents of each garden are determined by the site conditions. Sun, soil, water. It’s why goldenrod and aster are such a magical combination. They belong together. They’d find each other even if every gardener disappeared tomorrow.

If you think of your role as stewardship rather than management, your garden becomes free to grow how it wants to grow. Yes, remove weeds. Yes, water new plants. And- if you decide that it would benefit your whole plant community- yes, edit out more aggressive species from time to time. But overall, treat gardening as an exercise in letting go of control. Let things spread and move and grow together. Let your plants be who and how they want to be.

The new perennial movement has become famous for densely planted grasses punctuated by either small clumps or broad masses of colorful wildflowers. It’s naturalistic gardening at its best. It’s everything that inspired the romantic painters of the 19th century tamed for an urban audience. It’s my favorite design style and the one I will always default to when given the chance. And that’s because it’s also an achievable and attractive way to create real, valuable habitat in your yard.

Let’s put the vacant, soulless garden beds of yesterday behind us. There’s a movement happening.