I said here before that I am not a big fan of the New Perennial style of gardening. It doesn't mean I can't appreciate it though. It's just that I'm a sucker for trees and a garden without big trees - to me anyway - is lacking severely. But when you are faced with a bare field which you want to turn into a stunning garden in rather less than a decade, you could do worse than turning to the naturalistic style of the New Perennial Movement: Sussex Prairie Garden proves it.
Planted eight years ago by Pauline and Paul McBride with the help of 40 friends and family, this eight acres garden displays perennials on an amazing scale. Broad drifts of individual species mingle and weave together at their edges and create an incredibly rich tapestry of forms, textures and colours. The beds or borders are shaped in what their creators call "interlocking arcs" in the "shape of a spiralling nautilus shell" with very broad lawn paths between them. However, there are also narrow sneaking paths within these borders which you are encouraged to explore - and all of a sudden you find yourself dwarfed by grasses and flowers.
We went last September and here are a few of the pictures I took. All of them should open in a larger format if clicked.
Planted eight years ago by Pauline and Paul McBride with the help of 40 friends and family, this eight acres garden displays perennials on an amazing scale. Broad drifts of individual species mingle and weave together at their edges and create an incredibly rich tapestry of forms, textures and colours. The beds or borders are shaped in what their creators call "interlocking arcs" in the "shape of a spiralling nautilus shell" with very broad lawn paths between them. However, there are also narrow sneaking paths within these borders which you are encouraged to explore - and all of a sudden you find yourself dwarfed by grasses and flowers.
We went last September and here are a few of the pictures I took. All of them should open in a larger format if clicked.
Every year, the garden also plays host to many sculptures, most of them for sale. However, the herd of bison made of weathering or Corten steel belongs to this particular "prairie". If you want to create your own, there is a lovely nursery attached to the garden: Walking around the latter, you often stumble across some labels so you know exactly what you are looking at and can search the nursery for it. In fact, the borders provide the stock plants from which those for sale are raised.
For once, I managed to let my head keep the upper hand and didn't buy any of the tempting plants on offer. I'm still proud, if I'm honest, for usually desire and impulses get the better of me. But really: Sanguisorba in a 20cm pot? It just doesn't feel right. These plants need room to show their best. Maybe they don't need as much as in this stunning garden, but they certainly look the better for it being given.
For once, I managed to let my head keep the upper hand and didn't buy any of the tempting plants on offer. I'm still proud, if I'm honest, for usually desire and impulses get the better of me. But really: Sanguisorba in a 20cm pot? It just doesn't feel right. These plants need room to show their best. Maybe they don't need as much as in this stunning garden, but they certainly look the better for it being given.
The photographs in the block below are actually vertical images, so will show more when clicked.
The best time of the year to visit Sussex Prairie Garden is late summer, when the flowers and grasses reach their peak. However, I should like to see it in July one day. Or even earlier. Apparently, there is plenty of interest there from June onwards. And right into winter: their skeletons, though more muted in colour, are almost as fascinating as the living plants!
It is typical of the New Perennial planting style to select plants as much for their impact when dead and leave them in place until late winter. Paul and Pauline (who previously have worked with hugely influential and internationally renowned Dutch garden and landscape designer Piet Oudolf) wait for a good still day in February or early March and burn the whole lot to the ground.
For once I thought that I'd let the pictures do the talking. But if you want to know more, there is an interesting - if five years old - article from the Telegraph about the garden. And of course, Sussex Prairie Garden, open to the public most afternoons, has its own website.
It is typical of the New Perennial planting style to select plants as much for their impact when dead and leave them in place until late winter. Paul and Pauline (who previously have worked with hugely influential and internationally renowned Dutch garden and landscape designer Piet Oudolf) wait for a good still day in February or early March and burn the whole lot to the ground.
For once I thought that I'd let the pictures do the talking. But if you want to know more, there is an interesting - if five years old - article from the Telegraph about the garden. And of course, Sussex Prairie Garden, open to the public most afternoons, has its own website.
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