Peter Ward Garden Design

Foliage shape/colour and overall plant structure are as important here as flower colour. The border is a mixture of long lasting perennials and grasses laid out in a fairly traditional manner with the taller plants at the back giving way to smaller filler plants near the front. Some tall, structurally sparse perennials have been introduced near the front to make the planting a little ‘looser’ as some mid sized plants are then obscured and not everything in the border is visible at the same time.

Modern herbaceous planting mixes grasses and perennials, for a naturalistic and are often longer lasting in appearance. Often native perennials are used giving a more natural, robust and much less contrived feel to the planting.

The colour scheme is made up from mainly pink, blue, and purple with some white highlights. I intentionally went for paler colours as the space is so large a ‘hot’ coloured border might appear quite intimidating if it covered such a large area (this is dependant on the surrounding space though).

It will be at its best from mid summer all the way through to autumn, when it will still be providing structural interest.