Wild: The Naturalistic Garden

Well-groomed gardens are taking a backseat to wildflowers, according to this beautiful tour from designer Kingsbury (The Authentic Garden). He covers 42 international gardens that have been planted in “great naturalistic sweeps”: in France, there’s the “bushy” Mediterranean Les Cyprès and Le Jardin Sec in Meze, which prioritizes gray tones over green; the U.S. is home to the Von Schlegell Garden, suited perfectly for the rain in Portland, Ore., and the “wild, freer, and... complex” High Line park in New York City; and England’s got the muted Oudolf Field and the prairielike Stansbatch Barn. In Japan, meanwhile, Tashiro-no-Mori sits in a lush forest and looks like “something out of a fairy tale,” and the Netherlands’ Hummelo is a grassy “experiment in wild-style planting.” Thoughtful essays appear throughout the global tour: “A Seasonal Approach” makes a case that naturalistic gardens thrive because they offer a greater chance to “enjoy the seasons,” and “Natives vs. Exotics” contends with ideas about keeping gardens free of invasive species, asking, “Why not blend the locally native with familiar and visually exciting outsiders?” The photos are vivid and gorgeous, and most eye-opening is Kingsbury’s deep dive into the history of the wild-style trend that highlights the designers who championed it. Gardeners who prefer meadows to maintenance would do well to check this out. (Mar.)