The Layered Garden by David L. Culp

The Layered Garden by David Culp
This book came out in 2012, and the subtitle is Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage.

Ah, the layered garden—a symphony of color and texture that unfolds throughout the seasons, a testament to nature's enduring beauty. David Culp's The Layered Garden is a masterclass in this timeless art form.

Imagine a garden where spring heralds the arrival of delicate daffodils and fragrant hellebores, only to be followed by a vibrant summer tapestry of blooming perennials. As autumn paints the landscape in hues of gold and crimson, the garden's beauty persists, with jewel-toned Asian wildflowers adding a touch of winter magic. This is the vision David Culp has meticulously cultivated at Brandywine Cottage, his beloved two-acre Pennsylvania retreat.

Well, I'm a huge David Culp fan, and I feel like I'm telling you about this book just in time for summer because this book can help you set the stage for how you want your garden to look all year long. And since the summer lays entirely before us, this book is just in time for you. If you're planning a new garden or a garden redesign, you could do a lot worse than having David Culp be your guide.

Laura Springer Ogden wrote a review that's right on the cover of the book, And it says,

Garden-making in its finest form is a celebration of life and love - and David and this book epitomize this.

I couldn't agree more.

And by the way, you'll probably recognize the photographer's name for David's book as well -  it's Rob Cardillo. Rob always does such a fantastic job photographing gardens, so this book's photos are top-notch.

Now David kicks things off in this book with a quote from Francis Bacon, it's from Of Gardens (1625) - and it's one of my favorite garden quotes:

There ought to be gardens for all the months in the year, in which severally things of beauty may be then in season.

Of course, this sets the stage for what David is trying to teach us: how to have a garden that looks good all year long.

Now I thought I would share this quick little sweet story that David shares at the beginning of his book. It gives all of us some great ideas - especially if you have young gardeners in your life.

David wrote

One fall, when I was about nine years old, my grandmother Thorpe gave me a bag of bulbs and said,
"You go out and plant them."

I felt more than a little trepidation. I had never planted anything without her supervision. But she reassured me.
"You can do it. You won't go wrong."

Her generosity could have been ruinous to her flower border. But I got the bulbs planted with no mishaps.

The next spring, when they bloomed, I almost burst with pride. When she told all her friends, "David did that." 

And from that moment, I knew I was a gardener. 

And after all these years, it remains the core of how I define myself.

I love that story for a couple of different reasons.

Number one, it really does tee up what David is talking about here in The Layered Garden because as a gardener, if you dismiss specific categories of plants out of hand, like the flowers that you get with spring bulbs, then you'll likely miss one of the layers that can help make your garden beautiful all through the year.

Now the other reason I like this story is for practical purposes.

I hear all the time from new gardeners who are so anxious about planting bulbs, And now I'm going to say,

"Hey, if David Culp - as a nine-year-old - can do it, you can too."

And then, last but not least, I hope this plants a tiny seed with any folks interacting with kids in the garden; we definitely need to introduce them to planting spring-flowering bulbs because the result in the spring is just so impressive and unique. It also instills that sense of pride that you can get when your garden work goes to plan, and you experience that first flush of color. It's so wonderful.

Culp's approach to gardening is both practical and poetic. He understands that a genuinely captivating garden is more than just a collection of plants; it is a living, breathing ecosystem that evolves with the seasons. Through the art of layering, he has created a space that is both visually stunning and ecologically sound.

The Layered Garden is more than just a guidebook; it is a personal invitation into Culp's world. As he leads us on a tour of his garden, we are treated to a feast for the senses. We can almost feel the soft petals of the daffodils beneath our fingers, hear the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze, and savor the sweet fragrance of blooming flowers.

Throughout David's book, he reinforces this concept of the layered garden, but I will give you just a little snippet of how he introduces it here. He goes into much more detail and offers many more tips - wonderful little nuggets and tiny ideas - for making this look work for you.

Here's how he introduces the concept in his book.

Garden layers are made up of a variety of plants- some with complimentary or contrasting colors, others with interesting shapes or textures.

Layers are more than just perennials or annuals or bulbs or ground covers. They're more than just the ground layer of plants. That's the sole focus of many gardens.

Beautiful combinations are certainly possible, even in the tiniest scale. 

Think of dwarf Solomon's Seal underplanted with moss - that makes a precious six-inch-high picture. But to get the most interest from any garden, all the layers need to be considered from the ground level to the middle level of shrubs and small trees up to the canopy trees.

Growing plants on vertical surfaces, walls, fences, trellises, arbors, and other supports even climbing up trees, when we can be sure that they will do no harm, adds to the picture by bringing flowers and foliage to eye level and above.

So there you go. An introduction to what David is talking about when he says The Layered Garden.

You might already be intuitively doing some layering in your garden as you look for more ways to garden—looking for different plants—or finding and curating other ideas you can incorporate into your garden.

But I think what David adds is his mastery because he knows how to make all of this work in a very cohesive way that's pleasing to the eye.

David's book discusses how to design a layered garden, which is probably the key for most of us because we often don't think about that. If we layer the garden, it can just happen organically. But then, sometimes, we can end up with a slightly confused look.

Next, David talks about maintaining the layered garden, which is very important.

Now, there are two other aspects of this book that I want to share with you.

So, the first chapter talks about the layered garden, and it walks you through all that.

But the second chapter introduces you to his garden at Brandywine Cottage. This is important because you get a garden tour here, and David shows you how he's put this layered garden technique to work right on his property.

By the way, this is not David's first time doing at-bat gardening; he has designed many gardens. So, all of his work is coming together, culminating at Brandywine.

The last chapter, I think, is one of the book's most important chapters. Here, David shares his signature plants that he advises we consider incorporating into our gardens throughout the seasons. So, this is a great list. This is a list of plants from a garden designer - a garden lover - and someone who works in gardens daily. So right there, that's an invaluable part of this book.

Whether you are a seasoned gardener or just starting out, The Layered Garden is a must-read. Culp's insights on plant selection, design, and maintenance are invaluable, and his passion for gardening is infectious. So, let us embark on this horticultural adventure together, and discover the joy of creating a layered garden that will delight our senses and nourish our souls.

This book is 312 pages of layered gardening, the beauty of the garden at Brandywine, and then some of David's most treasured garden design secrets and favorite plants.

You can get a copy of The Layered Garden by David Culp and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $18.