Lurie Garden Display Print
The new wave in perennial design

The almost ‘formal entry to Chalet Nursery’s perennial display is a sharp contrast to the wild, meadow-like perennial display.The five acre Lurie Garden in Chicago’s Millennium Park, designed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd., Piet Oudolf and Robert Israel was the inspiration for the Chalet Nursery and Garden Center in Wilmette, Illinois, Top Ten Winning entry in the 2008 Perennials Marketing Contest sponsored by Plant Publicity Holland and the Perennial Plant Association.
Freya Wellin, perennial manager of Chalet Nursery achieved an outstanding and uber sophisticated perennial display – one that not many garden centers are brave enough to attempt. “I wanted to use an inspirational garden to show how to think differently about designing with sustainable perennials. My marketing objective was to sell late blooming natives and native grasses along with cultivated perennials and grasses,” said Freya. “As something to emulate, Lurie Garden, a public green space in downtown Chicago, fit the bill. The garden mixes natives with cultivated perennials to create a lovely meadow-like feel, while still being a controlled planting.”

 It’s almost hard to believe that the natural looking wild meadow display is made up of one and three gallon potted perennials.
 A close up look at plant placement in one of the many triangular shaped beds that made up the display. The unconventional placement of short flowering plants among taller grasses are one of the factors contributing to the success of the overall meadow-like look and feel of the display.
To get to the perennial display, Chalet customers had to walk through a metal archway – similar to the one at Lurie Garden which echoes Chicago’s classical architecture – surrounded by a variety of sizes and shapes of arborvitaes. Once through the archway they were greeted by the wonder of what looked like a natural meadow of grasses and flowers. Freya went on to explain, “The body of the display was made up of one and three gallon potted perennials put in wedge shape display beds. Each bed had two or more types of grass interspersed with three or more flowering perennials. The taller grasses were placed on the side of the display with the shorter ones in the middle which created vistas similar to those at Lurie Garden.

Chalet’s display was supported by in-house created POP describing the concept and inviting customers to ask how they could create this type of look in their own gardens. As well, detailed handouts described the easy plant combinations that made the simple triangle-shaped beds, and how to put the triangles together to make stunning border plantings.

We salute Freya Wellin and Chalet Nursery and Garden Center for their outstanding creativity.
 

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