Britain has an unrivalled reputation for gardening, and yet lags behind many other European countries in using plants in public spaces. There is a huge gap between horticulturalists and (private) garden designers on the one hand and landscape designers on the other. The plant knowledge of the latter is usually restricted to five or so evergreen shrubs (berberis, cotoneaster species), resulting in plantings that are very boring and have no relationship to their surroundings whatsoever. Everything they touch ends up looking like a supermarket carpark. We call it „green cement“. There is little or no input from garden designers into the public sphere, their concern is only with private clients, and their style is often too high maintenance, too fussy and intimate for public spaces.

Maintenance is the big problem in Britain. We have a maritime climate, which allows weedy species such as pasture grasses (eg. Arrhenatherum elatius) and evergreen forbs such as Ranunculus repens to grow almost 365 days of the year. Any planting involving ornamental perennials which are winter dormant is thus problematic. During the summer perennials can
cover the ground and thus limit the infiltration of weeds, but during the late winter and spring periods weed seed can establish easily in the bare earth between the perennials.

Historically, the only truly naturalistic garden style of any importance in Britain has been in woodland gardens; here the shade reduces the growth rate of competitive grasses and weeds, allowing perennials of woodland origin, eg. species of hosta and heuchera, to flourish. Perennials of open sunny habitats, have always been restricted to borders in the garden; strips along walls, hedges of fences.

Since 1994 there has been a great deal of interest in a more naturalistic planting style using perennials of wild origin (rather than highly bred hybrids). The „German park style“, as developed by Richard Hansen, has been a revelation to many of us, whilst the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf is receiving an increasing number of commissions from British clients. In late 1994 I was lucky enough to be asked to take over the management of a large mature garden around a big old house, now run as a nursing home, in the south-west of England: Cowley Manor, near Cheltenham. It was a perfect opportunity to assess the possibility of a naturalistic planting style on a large scale.

At Cowley we have tried two approaches. One is the mass planting of perennials, on the Hansen model, the idea being to create something that looks like a cross between a wildflower meadow and a conventional perennial border. The other is to try to naturalize robust perennials in grass, to achieve an effect somewhat like a wildflower meadow, but with more visual impact over a longer season (Britain's wildflower flora is extremely limited compared to Austria's). We call this a „perennial meadow“.

The mass use of perennials aims to blend species rather than use the clump planting that has traditionally been used in Britain, with a season that starts with spring and flowering euphorbias eg. E. polychroma and E. palustris, then moving on to combinations based around geranium and Iris sibirica in June, then a variety of taller perennials such as monardas and lythrums in the July to August period, ending up with asters, eg. Aster cordifolius, A. laevis and A. puniceus, helianthus and rudbeckia species and cultivars. Ornamental grasses provide interest throughout the season, particularly in the autumn to late winter period.

The species selected for our plantings are chosen for their suitability for the soil and aspect as much as possible, although given the unpredictable nature of the British climate, and our tendency to have cool wet summers, we do not have to be so strict in our use of ecological criteria as do gardeners in central Europe. However in a reason thin limestone soil we have concentrated on relatively drought tolerant plants like Artemesia ludoviciana, Knautia macedonica and Salvia nemorosa hybrids. We have a strict policy of not irrigating established plantings.

The most successful group of plants for this kind of low-maintenance mass planting are undoubtedly the geraniums, especially those pink-flowered species from northern Spain: G. endressii and G. versicolor, and their innumerable hybrids that are classified as G. x oxonianum. The climate of this region is very similar to that of west coast Britain, i.e. wet and mild. These low growing clump forming plants fill in the gaps between taller perennials and are very effective at suppressing weeds.

The mass perennial plantings are relatively low maintenance compared to the kind of perennial plantings that are traditional in Britain. The plants are selected on the basis that they do not need regular feeding, staking or division; in any case a need for such cultural practices is often the result of highly bred hybrids rather than species being used. Removal of dead stems in late winter and weeding between January and May are the main tasks. In some areas we have used a woodchip mulch which dramatically reduces the numbers of weed seedlings that germinate. On the whole these plantings have
been extremely successful with good public acceptance, although they are not as „tidy“ as some members of the public would like.

The other part of our experimental work at Cowley has been less successful, the creation of „perennial meadows“, as few non-native perennials seem able to establish themselves in the vigorous grass sward that results when grass is mown only once a year, during the winter. Those that are successful tend to start growth early in the season, and to have a clump forming habit that shades out grass immediately around them:
eg. Geranium phaeum, G. endressii types, symphytum species, echinops species. Asters such as A. laevis and A. cordifolius were successful for a number of years but have now been lost, possibly because of mollusc damage in last year’s wet spring. The Spanish geraniums such as G. endressii are semi-evergreen and are thus able to compete with the grasses on their own terms.

Comparing our work with that of Dr. James Hitchmough, who has been carrying out detailed research on the use of perennials in grass in the north of England, it seems that our mistake has been to aim at too long a season of interest, especially by including late-emerging and late-flowering perennials of North American origin. His work involves cutting the grass in mid-summer, as is the case with traditional haymeadows, which helps to maintain a finer grass sward with more grass species, one less competitive for perennials. He is having some success in naturalising early summer flowering perennials such as Papaver orientale, Trollius europaeus and Lychnis chalcedonica.

I am happy that we have been able to show that it is possible to create large scale plantings using species perennials in the British climate. We now hope to be able to inspire those who work in the public landscape to follow our example, and bring a feeling of the garden to all those dull places in our country.