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Ask the Expert: Horticulturist Kelly D. Norris on the ‘New Naturalism’ – Gardenista

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Gardeners are learning more every year about how our decisions can benefit the environment. We can plant more natives, say no to pesticides and chemical fertilizers, shrink our lawns, leave the leaves, and more. Excited to learn how garden designers are adopting this new knowledge, I spoke recently with Kelly D. Norris, the award-winning horticulturalist and author of New Naturalism (Cool Spring Press, 2021), about his naturalistic approach to design.

Norris was practically born with a trowel in his hands: He planted his first garden when he was just nine; for his 15th birthday, asked for and received an iris nursery, which he ran with his parents for more than a decade; and published four books about gardening well before turning 40. The former director of horticulture and education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden is now creating beautiful, environmentally responsible landscapes for clients. Starting next month, he’ll share his expertise with the New Naturalism Academy, a six-week online workshop on designing, planting, and growing what he calls “ecological vibrancy at home.” Below, he explains his gardening philosophy, offers advice on how to put it into practice, and shares some of his favorite plants.

Photography courtesy of Kelly D. Norris.

What is New Naturalism?

Above: Norris ripped out his front yard lawn in Des Moines, Iowa, and replaced it with into a vibrant meadow, teaming with wildlife. He planted thousands of landscape plugs and then overseeded the area with species like purple lovegrass to fill in the gaps. It is a profusion of blooms with varieties including Penstemon digitalis, bursts of pale purply-pink Eastern beebalm (Monarda bradburiana), yellow golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), Porteranthus trifoliatus ‘Pink Profusion’.

I like to think of New Naturalism as a synthesis of horticulture and ecology, weaving together contemporary trends in Western horticulture towards a greater nature in gardens: planting with a sense of place, building gardens from foundations of native plants, supporting pollinators and local ecosystems, sequestering carbon and gardening for climate change, among others. As the turn of phrase goes, it’s not original. Keith Wiley used it as a subtitle in his book On the Wild Side: Experiments in New Naturalism, which espoused a gardening philosophy borne from his intimate experiences with wild plant communities and habitats. Further, naturalism has its own roots in philosophy and science, seeking to understand nature through observation and inquiry. My book of the same name addresses a home gardener with wilder yearnings and goes to lengths to demonstrate how they can achieve ecological plantings on an accessible scale.

How do you create a garden that’s “on the wild side”?

At a client’s garden in Ames, Iowa, Norris created a dry meadow gravel garden. He planted drifts of feathery Bouteloua gracilis ‘Honeycomb’, prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera), Rudbeckia ‘Sweet as Honey’, bright orange Asclepias tuberosa, quaking aspen trees into the sandy loam, and then topped the beds with five inches of ¼ inch pea gravel.
Above: At a client’s garden in Ames, Iowa, Norris created a dry meadow gravel garden. He planted drifts of feathery Bouteloua gracilis ‘Honeycomb’, prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera), Rudbeckia ‘Sweet as Honey’, bright orange Asclepias tuberosa, quaking aspen trees into the sandy loam, and then topped the beds with five inches of ¼ inch pea gravel.

You first embrace the idea that the garden is a system of flora and fauna working together in concert and that it’s going to change. That’s the beauty of it. To nurture a resilient garden is to play an infinite game, not a finite one. Resiliency means something more to me than sustainability because lots of things are sustainable with the right number of resources. The limitation on resources is what we must get serious about living with. A resilient garden is self-perpetuating and has a capacity for life that’s both independent of and legible despite the gardener (even though we’re going to keep planting, weeding and puttering). It’s about living in cooperation with the garden-of-place as opposed to having to tend or maintain it.

Why is this new style of planting important with climate change?

Norris was hired to create a landscape for the Blank Performing Arts Center, Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, the summer home of the Des Moines Metro Opera. The landscape includes a steep 45-degree slope. Ninety-five percent of the plants he added are native to Iowa and the upper Midwest, including the grass Bouteloua gracilis ‘Honeycomb’, yellow and maroon Coreopsis tinctoria, and golden Rudbeckia hirta ‘Indian Summer’. “The goal of the planting was to have it be of the same caliber as performances inside the building,” he says.
Above: Norris was hired to create a landscape for the Blank Performing Arts Center, Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, the summer home of the Des Moines Metro Opera. The landscape includes a steep 45-degree slope. Ninety-five percent of the plants he added are native to Iowa and the upper Midwest, including the grass Bouteloua gracilis ‘Honeycomb’, yellow and maroon Coreopsis tinctoria, and golden Rudbeckia hirta ‘Indian Summer’. “The goal of the planting was to have it be of the same caliber as performances inside the building,” he says.

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