The traditional herbaceous border uses perennials to create a show-stopping picture with plants organised to complement and contrast with one another; colours, textures and leaf patterns all play an important part in creating a display that draws our attention. Typically such flower borders are placed in front of a wall or hedge and we look …
Flower Borders verses Naturalistic Perennial Meadows Read More »
In February snowdrops and hellebores are indispensable, but we must know how to use them and avoid the hype that surrounds them. It is not the plants, but the people who promote and sell them that I have a problem with. Snowdrops at their best create sheets of white nodding flowers around the dark stems …
February is the season for snowdrops and hellebores. Read More »
Perennial meadows fill our gardens with drifts of colour and texture replacing labour intensive lawns and dull areas of gravel and ground cover. However, this new trend in planting design has one big downside – the cost of the large number of plants needed! At between six to eight plants per square meter/yard we are …
Naturalistic is a term being used to describe a modern trend in garden planting design, but what does it mean? You would think it meant “like nature”, but none of these so-called schemes resemble anything I have ever seen in the wild. The use of this awkward word is an attempt to set such planting …
Naturalistic Planting Schemes for Garden Landscapes Read More »
This category will build into a series of articles that explain how the concept of perennial meadows has developed, where and how they should be used within gardens as well as the practical aspects of designing, planting and maintaining them. To avoid misleading anyone it should be understood that we are not primarily concerned with …
Let me make a start with a simple example of a perennial meadow. This is one of the planting areas created last year for a garden within the courtyard of an old people’s home in the centre of Amsterdam. The large irregular pond was already there and it would have cost far too much to …
My perennial meadows are created with densely planted pot-grown plants that can be set into an infinitely flexible arrangement of beds and borders to cover anything from a small patch of soil in a city centre courtyard to a field in open countryside. They are attractive from the moment they are planted becoming bolder and more …
