Furniture Design Ideas

The successful combination of different plant species is one of the main functions of planting design and landscape management. In traditional, horticultural-based planting design, aesthetic and functional considerations predominate: how do the different component species work together visually and how do they perform the tasks (such as dividing or filling spaces) for which they have […]

Any acceptance of an ecologically-informed approach to planting must fully embrace the concept of change. The common perception that plant communities in the wild are relatively static, with little alteration in their composition or appearance from year to year, is of course a misconception: change is fundamental to the processes that operate within semi-natural plant […]

Nigel Dunnett All planting design, if it is to be successful, must to some extent be a compromise between what is desirable (artistic or creative vision) and what is possible (scientific reality). Of course, technology can be employed to push the boundaries of what is possible on any given site, but this is often at […]

It is clear from this survey that ‘ecological design’ covers a very wide range of practices. There is a need for practitioners to appreciate that this range and the flexibility offers a wide range of solutions for many different situations. Public and, indeed, large privately owned areas of green space often involve a patchwork of […]

Two practices exemplify and highlight the problems we have in defining ecological planting design. Piet Oudolf in the Netherlands and Oehme/van Sweden in the USA have achieved high public-profiles for their innovative work. Both practices are noted for their extensive research of plant material and its use. They have both developed a distinctive aesthetic that […]

Native flora as an artistic medium It is possible to use locally native flora in a way that is entirely conventional in its design aesthetic, and with no intention of creating any kind of plant community. At first, this seems paradoxical. Yet it does have a rationale. Even used as monocultures, native plants will participate […]

The Lebensbereich style has had some influence over practitioners outside Germany, and this could well grow as knowledge of Hansen’s work and the spectacular park plantings becomes more widespread. Additionally, there are practitioners, often working on a small or local scale, who have evolved a broadly similar approach, whose work is characterised by its natural […]

The most successful Lebensbereich plantings, in terms of their public impact, have been those for dry habitats, the so-called ‘steppe’ plantings. Their inspiration is the highly distinctive, species-rich, and attractive flora of relatively low-nutrient soils that develop over limestone or sandstone in East-Central and Eastern Europe. Native species are combined with hardy taxa from Mediterranean […]

Dr Walter Korb, at the Bavarian Institute for Viniculture and Horticulture (Bayerische Landesanstalt fur Weinbau and Gartenbau at Veitshochheim), has begun to develop a simplified version of the Lebensbereich perennial style which is designed to be used by relatively inexperienced practitioners—‘Staudenmischpflanzung’ (Schonfeld 2002). The idea is that by having a plant list, with specified numbers […]

Of all the ecological planting styles, the work that has been done in Germany by Professor Richard Hansen and his followers represents perhaps the most sophisticated balancing point between nature and art, and one that carries very little ideological baggage or preconceived ideas about what is natural (Ktihn 1999). It also has an immense amount […]