Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden

A four-season guide to naturalistic bulb planting-combining bulbs with perennials and grasses in a loose, nonchalant style-from a leader in New Perennial garden design.

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The first book to be widely published in English by Dutch garden designer Jacqueline van der Kloet, one of the foremost gardeners in the New Perennial movement who has collaborated with Piet Oudolf. Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden is the first guide of its kind showing how bulbs can be incorporated into gardens alongside perennial plants and grasses so they appear to have grown naturally, with a nonchalant style that takes bulbs out of an old-fashioned traditionalism into a looser design space.

The book teaches home gardeners and designers how to plan for successive flowering periods that ensures that the same spot produces flowers again and again, with bulbs that flower early, in the middle of the season, and late into the fall. If these mixtures are assembled with bulbs that are suitable for naturalizing, or that will flower again many years in a row, the grower will benefit most, planting them once and then enjoying for years to come.

Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden is fully photographed, with tips on the basics of gardening with bulbs for both beginners and enthusiasts, including a brief history of bulbs, defining characteristics, colour considerations, garden planning, and planting tips for both traditional and modern styles in borders, containers, green roofs, and in grass as part of a meadow landscape.

There is a chapter on notable examples of bulbs in van der Kloet's garden designs around the world: the Keukenhof Garden and Floriade Festival in the Netherlands, Clumber Park in the UK, the Lurie Garden in Chicago (which she collaborated on with Piet Oudolf), and Shinko Central Square in Japan. The final chapter is a selection of Jacqueline's favorite bulb varieties for each season. Written in a friendly, welcoming, elegant, and disarming style, Jacqueline van der Kloet is poised to make a memorable debut in the English language gardening and horticulture world.