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Grasses asserting themselves in my late summer garden
To work with grasses you need to know that they tend to fall into two groups: warm season and cold season grasses, plus maybe a few that don’t fit conveniently into these artificial groups. Molinia...
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Late Summer Colour in the Perennial Meadows’ Garden
My trial gardens in Amsterdam seem to have waltzed through the colour wheel this year in spite of the difficulties that weather has throw at them. Spring was too dry, the first half of summer was cold...
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New English Perennial Borders
During my recent short trip to England where I was specifically studying shrubs – see earlier post – I took a look at two “new” (at least to me) large-scale, public, perennial planting schemes. One...
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Shrubs in Perennial Meadows
A shrub feature border consists of a selection of characterful woody plants presented within a mixed perennial meadow planting. The concept has arisen from a need to use shrubs with more effect in...
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Gardening with Grasses
The introduction of ornamental grasses into planting plans was one of the most significant changes to occur within garden design in the past twenty years. Through their inclusion amidst an evolving...
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Tulips from Amsterdam
Plants in their season can bring spectacle to the garden when used boldly. I search for such players in my gardens and use them repeatedly, at numerous intervals throughout the planting – I call them...
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Theme Plants
Snowdrops, hellebores, daffodils and lots of tulips: these are the plants that flower in sequence to bring my gardens to life each spring. But now that Tulipa sprengeri is coming into flower the end of...
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Early Summer Theme Plants – Roses and Hardy Geraniums
In a small garden you need to carefully choose a number of theme plants that you can use in sufficient quantities to have a bold impact and which, each in their turn, play a role in a sequence...
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Is Texture a Garden Theme?
Like any good story the plot is revealed one step at a time; my garden is the same. Different seasons have different themes as steadily the plants grow up and express themselves like actors in a drama....
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Looking good after 6 years – one perennial meadow example – 2015
Six years ago I planted eleven demonstration borders at Lianne’s Siergrassen; a nursery specialised in ornamental grasses, in the north of the Netherlands. I returned this month after a three year gap...
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Time to tidy up the Mixed Perennial Garden
This was my garden ten days ago wearing its late winter clothes of dead grass “stems” and perennials with their seed heads. Normally I try and tidy the garden in late winter (February) as it catches...
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Community Planting
Here is the small border at the entrance to my trial gardens in Amsterdam. It has been the same for more than ten years and requires less than an hours maintenance per year. Plants live together in...
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A small geranium to complement your planting schemes in a big way
I have just discovered that it was back in 2012 when I last wrote about Geranium tuberosum. Inspired by what I have just seem in the garden, my plan was to write something similar now, but having...
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Tulip Order
They are early this year, but Tulipa sprengeri are flowering in the garden and this marks the end of the tulip flowering season. Tulipa sprengeri There is no better time to plan your bulb order than...
View ArticleExcitement in the Autumn Garden
Perennials and shrubs continue to offer up surprises and pleasure in the late autumn Perennial Meadows’ garden. Grasses making an important contribution include various cultivars of Miscanthus...
View ArticleThe Same Border July and November
By early summer this border had lost the fresh colours of spring bulbs and matured into a gentle green cavern. Now in November, the fountains of ornamental grasses have brought movement to a space that...
View ArticleTulips in my garden
Now is the time to make a list of the spring flowering bulbs and especially the tulips you need to order for planting in the autumn. With the bulbs in flower in front of you – there is no better moment...
View ArticleBright Yellow and Orange Perennials contrast with Purples and Browns in the...
Rudbeckia and Helenium set the tone in the late summer garden. Their gaiety is modulated by the darker brown tones of tinted foliage and chunky seedheads. Our summer was dull in the end and the warm...
View ArticleShrubs in late spring
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...
View ArticleIndian Summer Reward
Asters, grasses and autumn tints are the main ingredients that brought my garden to its final crescendo this year. Following a long hot and merciless dry summer in which everything struggled...
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