Naturalistic Perennial Plantings The key aspect of naturalistic perennial plantings is that they have the beauty, character and ‘feel’ of wild and natural vegetation, but they aren’t necessarily copies of anything that would be found in the countryside. To create garden plantings that are based only on native wildflowers is a problem in that most of our most colourful wildflowers, and particularly those found in meadows, are species that flower in spring and early summer. If we want to create meadow-‐like plantings that flower for a much longer period then we have to start to look to adding other things into the mix. But also we may want to achieve special colour effects, or dramatic textures and structures, then we have to look elsewhere. At University of Sheffield, our whole approach to planting design has come to be known as ‘The Sheffield School’. We are definitely inspired by nature, and in particular by the way that natural vegetation works in a very self-‐sustaining way. But our approach is about creating a sort of ‘nature on steriods’ – a pepped-‐up nature that is very dramatic, colourful and exciting. We look to examples of dramatic and beautiful flowering landscapes around the world, and think about how we can be inspired by them to create garden plantings that capture some of that beauty and drama, but which also can be managed in a very simple way. So, for example, the large-‐scale naturalistic perennial plantings in the 2012 gardens at the Olympic Park take this approach, and focus on four world landscapes that have provided the main source of garden plants into British gardens over the last five or six centuries: the north American prairie, the South African veldt and fymbos, Chinese and Japanese forests and woodlands, and the European wildflower meadow. In each case they are not direct copies, but the wild original provides the design inspiration. Much of our work is based around creating plantings for the public landscape, where there has to be very high public appeal, and simple low-‐cost maintenance, and where we create plantings that are sustainable and have high wildlife value. A key element in creating this type of naturalistic perennial planting is the idea of successional planting, whereby later flowering plants grow up over and hide the shorter earlier flowers so that there is continuous flowering from the same area of space. This is very different from traditional planting, in which different parts of a garden, or different areas of a planting might take centre-‐stage at different times of the year. Where we create naturalistic perennial plantings we use the ‘random planting’ technique, whereby there isn’t a traditional planting plan where the location of each plant or group of plants is shown. Instead, the planting is carefully worked out as a plant mix, and then the plants are distributed randomly within the allocated space, at set planting distances. This creates a very spontaneous effect, and is quite easy for anyone to achieve. It takes a lot of the daunting aspects out of trying to create a truly naturalistic planting scheme.
The RBC Blue Water Garden Plantings The plantings in the RBC Blue Water Garden are naturalistic perennial plantings, mixing native and non native plant species to create a series of different meadow-‐like areas in the garden. The areas are planted using the ‘random planting’ technique, and the mixes are carefully designed to give a long season of display. The mixes match the ecological conditions in the garden: there are two mixes for open sunny and dry situations, one mix for shade, and one mix for wetter or damp conditions. The two meadow-‐like mixes for open sunny conditions are inspired by two types of naturally occurring meadows on limestone. In keeping with the water conservation theme of the garden, these dry meadows need little or no irrigation in dry periods to keep them going: they grow naturally on free draining, relatively dry soils. 1. Penstemon/poppy mix. This is inspired by dry limestone meadows in the rocky mountains around Denver, Colorado, where many penstemon species grow in rocky soils, with wiry grey-‐leaved grasses, silvery artemisias and other flowering perennials. I took the picture below in June just outside Denver. Our version is less sparse, and more flower-‐rich. We have mixes in some of the beautiful Papavar spicatum which has silvery leaves, and apricot flowers, as a contrast with the purple and blue penstemons. Colour scheme: blue, purple, silver, white, with some apricot.
2. Martagon Lily Meadows. This will be a major feature of the garden, and replicates the way that Lilium martagon grows in huge masses amongst meadow grasses and flowers. Colour scheme: pinks, purples, blue and white.
3. Bioswale mixes. These are based on European wet meadows – the sort that used to be widespread on river flood plains and pastures. Typically these meadows would dry out in the summer and be wet in the autumn and winter, but would periodically flood after heavy summer rains – just like they might do in a garden or landscape situation. In the Chelsea garden they line the bioswale areas. They contain a mix of native UK wildflowers from such places, such as the Ragged Robin, Lychnis flos cuculi and Water Avens, Geum rivale. The main feature of the swales will be massed plantings of Thalictrum species: tall upright plants with delicate ferny foliage, dark stems and fluffy heads of pink and purple flowers. They will create a formal ‘avenue’ of perennials along the main axis of the garden. Colour scheme: purple, white, lush green. 4. Woodland ground flora. Here we recreate the beauty of the spring woodland flora in full flower, but again mixing native and non-‐native species for a colourful display. A carpet of white violets (the large-‐ flowered Viola cornuta alba) mixes with ferns, aquilegias and woodland grasses. Colour scheme: white, green, with purple foliage.