The Layered Garden
The Layered Garden shows you how to recreate Culp’s majestic display. It starts with a basic lesson in layering — how to choose the correct plants by understanding how they grow and change throughout the seasons, how to design a layered garden, and how to maintain it. To illustrate how layering works, Culp takes you on a personal tour through each part of his celebrated garden: the woodland garden, the perennial border, the kitchen garden, the shrubbery, and the walled garden. The book culminates with a chapter dedicated to signature plants for all four seasons.
In the Garden, I express myself in two distinct ways: as a plantsman who enjoys collecting specimens of a variety of genera and watching how they grow and express themselves, and as a designer who enjoys playing with plants to achieve a desired effect. Negotiating between these two sides of my gardening self is sometimes as tricky as walking a tightrope, but I would not have it any other way. And unlike other collectors, who sometimes express a little embarrassment or shame when discussing this issue with nonbelievers, I am proud to announce to the world: Hello, my name is David, and I am addicted to plants.
Editorial Reviews
Gardenmaking, in its finest form, is a celebration of life and of love. David and this book epitomize this. Reading his words and seeing images of his garden, you will learn, be inspired, and enjoy.
A spartan home sits on a modest piece of property tucked into the suburban sprawl of southeastern Pennsylvania. It is surrounded by an effusive explosion of plants of every shape and hue. Vibrant magenta alliums send their pom-poms skyrocketing over drifts of pale blue forget-me-nots. Hillsides overflow with cascading ferns and hostas, while a vegetable garden banked with perennials dominates the sunny foreground. Rainbow pots of herbs and annuals carry the eye on a radiant journey of discovery—an ancient stone trough here, a gnarled wooden trellis there. So imaginative is Culp’s genius and so resourceful his passion for plants and design that his layered garden offers more sensory delights per square foot than most gardens manage to achieve over acres. In no mere “how I did this” memoir, Culp, with help from award-winning garden writer Levine, offers solid advice on design technique and plant selection. Famed garden photographer Rob Cardillo’s swoon-inducing inages showcase Culp’s vision for maximizing a garden’s potential. A stunning chronicle of the way Culp and his garden evolved over the years.
