Major redesign of Millennium Garden at Pensthorpe

Award winning designer and plantsman Piet Oudolf has returned to Pensthorpe Nature Reserve and Gardens in Norfolk to redesign his famous Millennium Garden which opened in 2000. The Millennium Garden was the first garden designed by Piet to open to the public in the UK.

For a number of years Pensthorpe was also the largest established garden that Piet had designed and has therefore remained an important example of his work. Piet, the founder of 'New Wave' planting, takes inspiration from nature and employs artistic skill in creating planting schemes, aiming to highlight form and texture and the natural harmony of plants.

A skilled plant breeder he has created new varieties for many of his specific designs. His style results from the influence of various horticultural traditions such as the combination of Dutch formality and naturalistic planting styles.

The bulk of the garden at Pensthorpe is planted with Perennials, most of which needed dividing after 3-4 years. Now in its ninth year, the garden was beginning to show signs of overcrowding with some of the original plants lost and so it was decided to ask Piet to return to redesign the garden. Piet devised the new planting plan in December 2008 with the first bed  lifted in March 2009 and replanting started. Due to the dry summer further work was delayed until September 2009 when dividing started again.

The new planting has taken eight months to dig, divide and replant - remarkably by one full-time gardener,  one part-time helper, three volunteers and help from two local organisations. This equates to 2,000 man hours which has seen the entire one-acre garden dug up and two thirds of the original garden divided and then replanted. The remaining third has been planted with 4,000 new plants.

Some of the species in the replant will be new to the garden - two new grasses – Panicum ‘Shenandoah’ and Sporobolus heterolopsis,  and several new perennials including Aster 'Anja's Choice', Echinacea 'Fatal Attraction' and Anemone 'Hadspen Abundance'. Other new species to the garden will include Heuchera, Limonium and Penstemons.

Over the past 30 years Piet has designed gardens both residential and public in the Netherlands, England, Germany, Canada and the US. His current projects include a park entrance at Bad Driburg and Godman Sachs new headquarters in New York.

For information about The New Millennium Garden and Pensthorpe log onto: www.pensthorpe.com