Plant List and Sourcing

In an earlier post, I discussed the foundations of my Meadow Nord planting schemes and the inherent complexity of gardens wilder with intention, modeling the behaviors and patterns of natural systems. The history of art and architecture has often vacillated between simple and and complex movements, each with their own intellectual arguments.The history of horticultural plantings is remarkably simplistic, born of an almost purely aesthetic vision (which isn’t bad, if only it weren’t so one-dimensional or boring). I disagree with simplicity for simplicity’s sake and am planting my own argument in favor of a legible exuberance at the overlap of form and function. I’ll have it wilder, please.

To that end, I planted 80 taxa in phase 1. A dozen or so taxa weren’t available or were backordered until spring, bringing the unofficial count to somewhere north of 90. In my previous post, I described the process of planting the meadow and explained a little bit about how dense planting schemes don’t always make sense mathematically (after the remaining plants are installed this coming spring, Meadow Nord will have 116% of its square footage covered in green matter, assuming a theoretical survival rate of 100%, of course). I’m most excited to see how this assorted assemblage forms its own patterns over time. A planting scheme like this is never really “stable,” as the composition of the community will shift interminably. But it can be durable, an idea I wish we would talk more about in landscape design. I have no illusion that every planting choice I’ve made will work out or that every placement is permanent. But I hope for durability of my assumptions over time as each planting decision occurs within a range of tolerances.

Plant List and Sources

A word about the column heads. Phase, Taxa and Cultivar are fairly obvious. I separate cultivar names into separate fields so I can sort by cultivar within diverse genera like asters, for example.

Component contains labels I often use throughout my design process and in Plants With Style: matrix, structure, emblems, vignettes, kitsch.

I liberally defined the bands for Seasonal Interest. I used approximate dates based on previous experience in Iowa when applicable. For others that I haven’t experienced, I used a guesstimate. For groundcovers like Tiarella, I counted the period from flowering through the time when their leaves start to sag a little in the summer heat. This isn’t to say they wouldn’t contribute ornamentally outside of this period, but the design isn’t relying on it exactly. Here is an example of how I used this data to create a phenologic chart using a Gannt chart template in Excel.

A sample Gantt chart generated from a free Microsoft Excel template.

% of planting signifies the percentage of the entire planting occupied by that taxa. 0% entries result when a species falls below 1%.

Order Qty. indicates the number of units ordered for that taxa. Taxa grown from seed only have 1 unit indicated because I purchased 1 seed packet. I track it this way for costing purposes so I don’t have to break out costs per seed (the rest of the spreadsheet calculates individual costs per plant).

I relied on several Sources to procure this beautiful chaos. Most companies are recognizable. GDMBG stands for Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden indicating plants I purchased through our Spring Garden Festival or propagated from collections I’ve made on behalf of the Garden. My own initials (KDN) or Rainbow Iris Farm (RIF) indicate plants procured from my nursery and garden at my family’s farm.