Back home in my own garden , I reflect on our recent trip to RHS Garden Bridgewater and what we can learn from studying the plants used in the birders. In a quest to extrapolate the formula for better planting that ensures a long season of interest we can emulate Tom Stuart-Smith’s clever planting in our own gardens. Come with me on the start of my journey to investigate which plants I should use in my large herbaceous borders to give a better display next year. I will be following this video up by talking to two great gardeners about how they do it – so keep watching!
0:00 Intro
5:52 The Problem
8:17 Repetition
9:15 Plant in large drifts
11.30 Use plants with a long season of interest
12:36 Grasses
16:26 Positioning of plants
18:33 Ground cover
19:32 Colour and contrast
21:04 Architectural Plants and structures
22:36 Beautiful trees
24:46 Anchor plants
25:20 Focal points
26:04 Zoning an area
27:2 Summary
27:36 Videos to come and goodbye
25 Comments
So much great information ! Whenever I go on a garden tour I always want to come home and rip out my gardens and start over . Can’t wait to see how you revamp your garden,we always look at our own gardens with a critical eye .💐
Great video, lots of good info, look forward to the next one. Thanks
I am so glad that Danielle introduced her audience to your channel! I have really been enjoying your videos. I have watched many of your older videos now as well. But may I suggest that you turn your audio volume up quite a bit more.
I have to really turn my volume up to max in order to hear you and then when an advert pops on, it about blasts me out of the room lol. Would be much appreciated!
I now have two garden related things to look forward to in the autumn. Getting five new acer palmatums in my garden and seeing your redesigned borders. 🙂
What a great video…I’ll need to watch it over and over. I really enjoyed Chelsea autumnal show. I wish they would alternate between spring and autumn shows.
That was packed full of good information! Thank you ❤
Many thanks for sharing your knowledge, it really helps to understand how to create a space which has a pleasing over-all balance, clusters of structural and/or colour beauty whilst keeping the idea of pleasing pollinators, using drought tolerant plants and all of this with the added challenge of not breaking the bank is not easy. I find that taking cuttings from shrubs and starting perennial from seed and splitting all helps. I love dahlias and these can be propagated quite easily. So now it's just a question of placing it all…..not so easy. So many thanks again, we need all the help we can get 😊
How exciting!!! Looking good. Now the fun stuff starts happening with the build! 👏🏼
This is HUGELY helpful! I suffer from some of your same challenges (don’t we all?). I noticed in some of your close-ups that you have a variety of staking/support systems throughout your garden. Would you consider doing a video all about plant supports (different types, which ones are best for certain plants, sizes of supports, make your own, and when to put in the supports). I know that part of what has my borders looking messy is that I don’t seem to have mastered plant supports and trellising. Many thanks, and keep these great videos coming!
Amy in Minnesota.
I’m here from Danielle’s reference. Your gardens are stunning and I’m enjoying your channel. 💗
I loved your video-you are so right it is more fun learning from each other rather than showing only perfection. Thanks for the honesty it’s another gem of wisdom. On one of your other videos you recommended naming your garden rooms. You changed my gardening concept completely! Now when I’m planting the thought process is more organized to the space. Thanks for your gems and God bless you.
Thank you so much for putting this together, Jenny. This was one of the most informative, interesting and useful gardening videos I have ever watched. I am guilty of planting “blobby” garden beds, mainly because I tend to buy only one or two of an individual plant. Plants are just so expensive and are becoming more so. To achieve good repetition, I propagate a lot of existing plants in the garden or when I buy something, I choose plants that have enough bulk so that they can be divided or propagated by cuttings. This require time and patience, but is extremely rewarding and a lot of fun. I have read that drifts of plants look best and more natural when the drifts are not all the same size. Also drifts that are tadpole-shaped (thin at one end and wider at the other end) and weaving in and out of one another so that plants finish flowering or need cutting back are somewhat hidden by those in front. My winter interest/ anchor plants are box, pittosporum and westringia spheres. I find that lots of ephemeral, airy plants need a more solid-looking weighty presence for contrast. My rural Australian garden is surrounded by paddocks of (usually) brown grasses so the fashion for ornamental grasses has been one I have yet to embrace, because it looks like paddock weeds have invaded! I need to find some pretty grasses that aren’t brown! Bravo for sharing your problem areas. We all have them. It will be exciting to see how you change things. Thanks again for such wonderful tips.😊❤ from Gippsland, Australia
Thank you. 🌸💚🙃
Great video! I also found you through Danielle. I love both of your gardens so much!
New follower; so glad Danielle led me to this site! This is a great video. Thanks for being so honest about garden design fails and insight on how to improve a border. Learned a lot.
New subscriber here! Loved Loved Loved this…I'm all in! 🌱💚🦠
Thank you for sharing your 12 Top Tips gathered from the Garden you recently visited. I love your gardening enthusiasm and am looking forward to watching & learning this process in action as you redesign your borders. Please show us as much of your work as possible as you create this beauty as you go. I am also looking forward to you sharing the beauty of upcoming Garden tours & your interviews with the expert gardeners who create them. Thanks again for the inspiration & enthusiasm. (Incidentally, I love your garden design at your home!)
We joyed the way you view a public garden and then try to implement what you see in your own garden. I did it after viewing the Chicago Botanic garden, and am glad to see you doing that too.
I always enjoy your videos , I learn alot . I’ll be designing my garden this autumn,
Thank you
Also cuttings save heaps of money.
I seed save every summer and find most perenials take well.
We dont have the variety you have….like the grasses.
They are beautiful in the breeze.
Ive planted dwarf fruit trees with delpiniums, salvias, cat mint, dahlia, dwarf peach knipfofia and strawberries over the edge.
I agree with planting in repetition and drifts to make an impact.
Gardens are always changing us and them.😊
Jo (New Zealand)
So many interesting points to learn from. Excellent. It seems your intentions for the back borders fit into the “new perennial movement” and the designs of Piet Oudolf. Is that correct?
Great information on a topic I don't see covered much. I tend to like ornamental beds that contain just a few different flowers. Or even just a large mass of 1 flower. Like Rose gardens sometimes have.
With all your flowers and lawn, do you have any issues with wasps? In my garden I have lots of them and now at the end of July, the yellowjackets are coming out in full force and they fly low just above the lawn making it next to impossible to work in the garden for any length of time.
New subscriber from Danielle’s blog. I’ve spent 2 days catching up with your channel, due to lots of time because of being on crutches for a couple of months. Love the variety of your videos covering your own garden and visiting other gardens! Educational and inspirational! I garden in US zone 7b near Atlanta.
I got rid of a 10-year-old stand of coneflowers two weeks ago and feel much better for it. I have such a small garden and they were beginning to take over odd places, obscuring their neighbors. I worried at first because the goldfinches adore the seeds but I decided to plant zinnias for them. We all need a change! Thank you for the wonderful videos. I learn so much! You keep things real.