Three Principles for the Dutch Wave
copyright: chambersdesign
The Dutch Wave follows three vital guidelines to produce the iconic gardens so loved around the world. First, the vast majority of vegetation used are perennials, be it flowering plants or grasses. Second, the number of plants within a design is greatly amplified far beyond the number used in more traditional styles. And third, the first two rules do not act in isolation. Their real mission is to conjure a sense of natural world, as if the garden just kinda happened on its own. This isn’t as easy as it may sound. The drama and splendor of nature plays out through a set of pattens and themes expressed with the textures and colors within each living thing within it. Plus, for the environment to really present itself, it must summon the notion of the passage of time. When a garden does these things, it truly enters the realm of the Dutch Wave.
Three Guiding Rules
There are three major principles used in Dutch Wave gardens that really help them stand out. You need to use perennials, so they come back each and every year. You need to use lots and lots of them so that you provoke the true character of nature itself – as if you are peering into a wilderness undisturbed by man. There are many other important parameters, but these three cannot be absent. For example, you must possess an in-depth knowledge of a wide variety of forbs, herbs and graminoids. You must know the difference between a grass, sedge and carex - and how they each grow. You’ll need to be inimitably familiar with the different species of a genus along with the varieties of a species. The taxonomy of these all these plants is crucial for placing them with other companion flora. And you should know how each plant expresses itself visually during each season of the year. And, once you begin to master all of that, you realize it’s just the start. This is because the garden isn’t simply a scientific exploration of native-ish plants. All these details are needed to allow you the artistic licenses to create something unbridled and beautiful.
Perennials offer the dynamic of change necessary – they are always different from spring to fall and back again. They are small in March – bigger in May, go into bloom at some point and begin to dead back with cooler air. Some bloom in April and others in June or July or August or October. The flowers themselves aren’t the only valuable part. For example, a Monarda, after it loses its pellets reveals its eye. During a snowstorm its remains are as incredible as the flower in July. The stems of a plants can act as erased lines on a paper…a reminder to what was yet gone but completely. The poetry of the Dutch Wave embraces all these lesser-known personalities of perennials.
Perennials are more expressive in this way than, say, shrubs or trees, because they have a greater character arch during the growing period of warmer months. For example, a grass like Calamagrostis brachytricha begins each year as short shoots of green blades that shyly come from the ground. Through summer, the small fountain of leaves grows into a gushing rain of arching blades. And as the days turn gray and cold, incandescence spades of pink and orange stab at the sky as if to fight winter away. It loses this battle and as it falls asleep, the seed heads turn a golden brown and remain that way until the next warmer breezes.
Color and Texture
Flowering plants can provide pops of color that last for a week or two - or can be the central protagonist for a month or more. They don’t have to always be in bloom to take center stage - something like Veronicastrum virginicum gives verticality to a spot before and after their petals shine. They remain a vocal player even in winter when its spent stigma twists until it resembles a crazed cigar.
You can’t plant 1 or 2 or even 10 V. virginicum with a lonely C brachytricha to get the magic effect. You need 20, 30 or 100 to make the melt together into a more DUTCH WAVE design. When I design gardens, I can easily use 1500 to 2000 plants. This number of botanical individuals is a dramatic departure from the more standard yard design for a house. Typical yard design will include 4 or 5 of one flower and maybe 1 specimen of, say, 3 or 4 other plants, and then coupled with several evergreen shrubs. This just won’t do.
The need for so many plants is why I use flats. A flat refers to a tray of small plants known as plugs. One flat will have between 32 to 72 plugs typically all the same species.
Plugs make planting easier because they aren’t very big. I can sometimes install a tray within 10 to 15 minutes. You don’t need to dig a big hole. My tool of choice is a pickax. I like to use the pick mattock (the pointy head of the ax). With one strong strike, the point goes straight into the earth. I can wiggle it around to get the desired size of hole I need and then in goes the plug. It’s efficient. The more important aspect of using plugs is that with so many you can begin to really emulate the way nature choreographs life. When you scan a landscape, you don’t see straight lines like a farm. You don’t see mulch between each either. In nature, you see a field mixed together in harmony. Flowers and grasses in a quasi-vegetable dance. Some group together while other seem to be loners while others drift across the meadow like a stream. All of these patterns take more than 1 or 2 potted plants to achieve. And it takes a bit of discipline – you must think like the countryside while combining your own creativity with the mindset for nature’s creative process.
The Big Finish
The result is a garden with thousands of plants - some that fill the space, others that add color for a short time while still others add color for longer periods of time. You’ll have taller specimens popping up here and there - and others that anchor the plot. The goal is to make it look like no one did anything to make it happen. As if, you just stopped mowing your lawn and suddenly a beautiful wild garden appeared. The truth is it takes a lot of work to make it seemed no one did anything. It's not easy, but it is stunning. These 3 principles guide the effort: perennials and grasses only (or as the major, major character), use many more than you may think necessary and lastly, study nature’s patterns to get a better sense of how plants existing in the wilderness - these will make the Dutch Wave divulge itself.