Nigel Dunnett on Planting: How to Design High-Impact, Low-Input Gardens

Nigel Dunnett's gardens and landscapes have lifted the spirits of city dwellers for decades. They are beautiful, uplifting places that resonate with the energy of the natural world and stop us in our tracks. But how does he achieve these plantings with their successional waves of colourful perennials, elegant grasses, and pollinators at work with so few demands on irrigation and other resources? In this book he shares his inspiration, philosophy and working methods. He puts his own particular style of naturalistic planting in historical context, teaches us how to read wild plant communities and understand how they behave in garden situations. Finally he shares his plant selection, which includes trees and shrubs as well as perennial and annual meadow plants, and implementation techniques in a neat planting design toolkit. The exemplary work of this pioneering designer is instructive and inspirational to all who wish to build thriving plant communities that have close ties to nature and provides interest day in, day out and year after year.