Garden design ideas for your garden

Naturalistic Planting

Written by Garden Designer Mark Fenton.
For more information about Mark's work - please visit his web site.

In contemporary garden design naturalistic planting is like the equivalent of the 'haute couture' handbag, but as a new and developing trend, many homeowners may be unfamiliar with its use and merits.

Planting described as naturalistic has the appearance of an area such as a prairie, as the layout of the plants is inspired by the patterns and groupings of naturally occurring plant communities.

Ecological planting is often confused with naturalistic planting, the main difference however is that with ecological planting the plants are allowed to spread and seed so as to create a changing or 'dynamic' plant community. 

Noel Kingsbury is an advocate of the naturalistic planting style and he writes (2004) that there are three main planting arrangements: monoculture, block and drift.

Block planting is more commonly known; the work of Piet Oudolf (left) could be placed within this category as he plants large groups of the same perennial. In this arrangement the groups of plants are arranged according to height and aesthetic qualities such as foliage colour and texture.

Naturalistic planting arranged as drifts appears familiar to many people as it is more akin in style to how we imagine meadows and prairies. The 'Escape!' garden (pictured below) by Andrew Loudon at Tatton Flower Show 2005 incorporated the use of drift planting by Beetham Nurseries. The photograph illustrates the intimate composition and range of plant shapes typical of this arrangement.

With herbaceous naturalistic planting such as that illustrated the composition can be divided into general categories according to habit and form, schemes often include:

• 10% solitary, architectural perennials such as Verbascums
• 40-50% clump forming perennials such as Achillea
• 40-50% groundcover perennials such as Acaena
• plants scattered throughout - predominantly bulbs

Although this is only a brief introduction to naturalistic planting it is hopefully sufficient in providing an overview of what designers are making reference to when discussing naturalistic and ecological planting.    

(Picture of Piet Oudolf's work is courtesy of The Royal Horticultural Society.)

© Reckless Gardener Magazine 2005 Mill Cottage New Media