Gardens are often made to replicate a historic style which may be in-keeping with their situation. And such historic styles of themselves may be a good enough reason to shape a garden space and plant it with appropriate plants.
Islamic gardens have served for centuries as an oasis in the desert to feel closer to ones beliefs. Enclosed by protective walls and served by a water source flowing outwards, every element and individual plant playing a symbolic role in the design of these formal gardens.
Medieval gardens of Western cultures were once created as safe havens in an otherwise hostile world. The high walls of the hortus conclusus offered protection and created a space in which to relax as well as grow plants to nourish both body and mind. Simple geometric arrangements of flower beds allowed useful vegetables and herbs to be grown. The apothecaries garden is a form of such a garden where various medicinal herbs were grown in logically arranged beds around an available source of water. Alongside these in monasteries, cloister gardens occurred, often surrounding a central water well. These uncluttered spaces offering the monks a calm retreat in which to think and to study.
All of these models might be used today to create a garden space that is sheltered, peaceful and focused upon itself rather than any surrounding chaos or outside influences. Their walls bring separation, as do our garden fences, and water is both used symbolically and as a necessity.
In this third Mind Garden design I want to use the elements of enclosure and water, but at the same time not try and reproduce a copy of an Islamic walled garden or a Medieval herb garden. The design idea I have evolved is to place a simple source of water in the very centre of the garden: a small round pool or a large bowl overflowing with water will be enough. The walls will not be the boundary fences, but plants set within the garden using a combination of evergreen shrubs (clipped Taxus hedges) and rows of upright growing grasses.
The grass used is Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ as its height and stiff upright growth habit develops quickly in early summer and prior to this is will bring bands of fresh growth amidst many spring flowering bulbs, especially tulips.
In winter the short Taxus hedges will stand free as upright specimens within the open garden and become surrounded by low-growing perennials and drifts of bulbs in spring. As summer arrives the grasses will grow up between the Taxus hedges and together they will become the enclosing walls of this contemporary hortus conclusus.
It would be tempting to allow the rest of the design to become a formal arrangement of patios and paths, but to both break with tradition and also to dramatise the transition of the informal spring garden into the formal enclosure focused upon its central water feature in summer, I have used organic curving shapes for the off-centre patio and paths.
Two planting schemes are going to be used here: one full and dramatic within the grass hedge and surrounding the patio and one in the space between the hedges and outer boundary.
The outer ring of perennial planting will be low-growing, especially interesting in spring and contain a high percentage of evergreen species such as ferns and sedges. Practically this will work as many of the plants need to be shade tolerant both later in the growing season and at certain times of the day as the sun moves round causing the boundary fencing to cast shade over this outer zone.
In full sun, the central area of this garden could be planted in numerous different ways according to taste. My choice here has been triggered by the central water feature from which I have planned narrow rivers of blue flowered salvias to flow outwards. The rest of the perennials used are chosen to work with this dominant element.
Scheme One –Spring interest and shade tolerant with bold ferns and the addition of large clumps of autumn-flowering, taller-growing perennials.
Theme plants – per square meter ( x 1 )
1 x 2 Dryopteris cycadina (Syn.D. atrata) – fern
3 x 1 Pachyphragma macrophyllum
3 x 1 Luzula nivea
3 x 1 Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae
1 x 2 Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’
Complementary plants: Chelone obliqua in clumps of 6 every 3 meters along fence. Aster laevis in clumps of 3 every 3 meters along fence. Underplanted with snowdrops and daffodils for bold spring spectacle.
Scheme Two – Blue rivers of salvias and dark mounds of Actea surrounded by seasonal flowering perennials and white flowered Pennisetum grassses.
Theme plants – per square meter ( x 1 )
2 x 1 Pennisetum orientale – grass
1 x 2 Actea simplex ‘James Compton’ (Syn. Cimicifuga s.)
1 x 1 Veronica ‘Red Arrows’
2 x 1 Nepeta kubanica
2 x 1 Aster laterifolius ‘Prince’
Complementary plants: Ribbons of Salvia nemorosa ‘Ostfriesland’ radiating outwards with Astrantia ‘Claret’, Geranium ‘Patricia’, Sedum ‘Xenos’, Astilbe chinensis var. taquetii. as occasional complementary plants within the theme plant mix.
The fact that perennials grow from nothing to maturity in a single summer allows them to alter the garden spaces they occupy. The use of upright grasses here changes the mood of this garden completely in just one season. Throughout winter many of the plants used here will remain as interesting silhouettes with seedheads and dried stem skeletons.
More schemes such as those used here are to be found in the Perennial Meadows eBooks together with details of the individual plants used.
Gardens can evolve over time to reflect the interests and character of their makers and eventually a unique atmosphere will develop. Alternatively, they can be designed either by their owners or a professional designer with the aim of creating a specific mood or visual impact. In this series of posts – Mind Gardens – I will try to show how different ideas and dreams can be realised in the gardens we design and plant.
Scheme 1 – taken from my Prairie Meadows eBook
Scheme 2 – taken from my Prairie Meadows eBook
Scheme 3 – conceived for this project.
For a garden to be more than just a comfortable place to sit in to drink a cup of coffee there needs to be some sort of idea underpinning its design. Ideas together with constraints guide the design process and can lead to outdoor spaces that have focus, draw attention to something or evoke an emotional reaction through associations.
Across a path, on the other side of the garden, I have designed a long and deep flower border. I could just repeat the same grass-based scheme here for a controlled minimalist look, but instead I envisage a low-growing, colourful flower border that will offer more interest over a longer season to the garden owners – Scheme Two. Note: These are often the sort of choices to consider when designing for either a public as opposed to a private garden setting.
Theme plants – per square meter ( x 1 )
Theme plants – per square meter ( x 1 )
Laren, the Netherlands, September 2018 design Piet Oudolf
Asters, grasses and autumn tints are the main ingredients that brought my garden to its final crescendo this year.
Beauty is to be found in the chaos of nature and this year, in the struggle for life amidst the perennials and shrubs in my gardens. A drier than average spring followed by a totally dry summer in which a hundred days passed without any significant rainfall in a country famous for its canals; I was forced to turn on the sprinklers.
Shrubs held onto their leaves for as long as they could, but eventually many just dropped them and I am sure will recover next year. Some perennials like ligularias, Darmera and certain ferns simply disappeared and again I am sure they will all reappear this autumn or next spring.
What was interesting was how some plants simply dried up and remained effective after a short flowering period. In late autumn we would be talking about their winter silhouettes, but in July you needed to adjust your expectations to fully appreciate what was happening. In the case of this public planting in the commercial district of Amsterdam I found the result still effective and attractive.
More gardeners are starting to install irrigation systems, but if the trend in climate change is going to continue we would be better changing the pallet of plants we grow. I visited a high profile public park planting here this August which was of course fitted with an expensive watering system, but the lush green that dominated this oasis seemed strangely at odds with the wider landscape which was buff-brown; more typical of the Mediterranean region than temperate Holland.
We were allowed to water our gardens this summer as the one thing the Dutch are good at is water management, but in truth it felt wrong. Nevertheless it meant that I was able to keep the garden ticking over with some parts relished the extra heat, sunshine and, for them adequate, water.
Rain has finally fallen and within a week our parched, buff-brown land is green again. Asters, grasses and Rudbeckias are all thriving in the garden and surprisingly many shrubs are bearing heavy crops of berries.
It is in late spring, just after the tulips have ended, that I become delighted by the many flowering shrubs and distinctive foliage colours that seem to dominate the garden.
Of course there are various perennials flowering including Euphorbia, Geum, Geranium and bulbous plants such as Camassia and ornamental onions, but foliage colours and the flowering mounds of Viburnum and Deutzia shrubs attract all the attention.
My philosophy over shrubs concludes that shrubs are best used in gardens to create highlights and structure amidst a wider field of flowering perennials and ornamental grasses.
Even in my own garden where I trial many different plants, including lots of shrubs, the idea is evident, but ideally the relationship between shrubs and perennials should be far more pronounced. Many Deutzias grow too large for smaller gardens but I have found Deutzia rosea ‘Campanulata’ with D. x elegantisima ‘Rosealind’ (behind) remain sufficiently compact for my needs. The upright shrub on the right is Frangula alnus ‘High Line’. Its distinctive upright form suggest it would work in a variety of schemes, but I find it rather boring and not very elegant, for such an upright design feature I can think of many slim growing conifers that would look so much better, and would be evergreen.
Purple leaved foliage has featured in my gardens far a long time as it offers a strong, season-long contrast with the green foliage and flowers that generally dominate. Prickly Berberis, evergreen Pittosporum and Cercis with its flush of pink flowers on bare stems at the very start of the season have all proven indispensable.
In my vision of the 
My last post showed the garden three weeks ago just after I had knocked down all the perennials with the question “would you want your garden looking like that?”.
Well, as promised, the perennials have reappeared rapidly to cover the ground level debris and the shrubs are bursting into flower.
This is how it was just three weeks ago.
The dead remains of last year’s perennial growth will rot down in the course of the year, gradually nourishing the plants in a natural process.
Shrubs and tulips take a leading role at this time of the year.
The time I save in not carrying everything I remove to a compost heap, that I later must bring back to spread onto the ground is enormous. It might not look very tidy for a few weeks in early spring, but for me it represents the beginning of the new year’s gardening season.
Cycling across town to these gardens I pass a public space in which a good example of mixed perennial meadow planting has been created. In season it is dramatic and highly effective and in winter the plant’s silhouettes are attractive. However, the city council has yet to find time to tidy it up and what currently is to see there is very ugly. Although perennial meadows can be effective in public spaces and offer significant savings in maintenance cost, their maintenance needs to be timely and rigorous.
As it currently appears this bold planting is a poor advertisement for what is a very good model for public green space planting. In a few weeks time it will again be something the passing public will appreciate, but it should have been tidied using my snap and drop technique many weeks ago.
Spring is late in Amsterdam this year. Only three weeks ago we were skating on the canals in the centre of the city. Once the bulbs come into bloom and the shrubs blossom the scruffy ground cover will soon be forgotten.
