Maybe seven or eight years ago, in a conversation with landscape designer Claudia West, she said a sentence that has really stuck with me, as she explained her approach to selecting and combining plants.
“Plants are the mulch,” Claudia said then, about making immersive landscapes that engage humans as much as they do pollinators and other beneficial wildlife.
Though it’s tempting to choose the plants we buy for our gardens based on looks alone, Claudia and her colleague Thomas Rainer of Phyto Studio, co-authors of the groundbreaking 2015 book “Planting in a Post-Wild World,” have tougher criteria for which plants earn a spot in their designs.
Claudia is here today to talk about how the Phyto Studio team figures out what makes the cut, and more.
The latest crop of Urgent Garden Questions ranges from peonies that just didn’t bloom, to ants on peony buds and ants in flower pots,...
Woody plants—the trees and shrubs—can be pure ecological powerhouses, but most of us don’t have room for an entire forest in our backyards. So...
Though the calendar says that spring started on March 20, the many clues that nature offers to those who watch and listen add up...
