The prairie-style design you can see in big gardens and public spaces looks so impressive at this point in the calendar you’ll be itching to have one of your own. The challenge is turning a suburban garden into a prairie, but a few tweaks can give you surprisingly good results.
Your patch needs to be at least 1.5 metres deep, anything narrower only gives you a neat little row of plants. You’re trying to create the impression of a wide open space with a pleasing flow of plants spreading into the distance. Your eye should be led through one planting to the others behind. Flower spikes on thin stems achieve this nicely, so a self-sown foxglove near the edge won’t be out of place.
There’s no formal design, no military arrangement with small plants at the front, predictably ascending to tall ones at the rear. Aim for a wave of plants, with crests and hollows, statuesque specimens then lower foliage interspersed with randomly spaced larger flowering spikes.
Ideally, in a garden setting, you’d want repeating groups of three, five or more plants of the same species. With limited space, simply restrict yourself to one of each species group, placed anywhere but in the middle.
For more eye-catching results and longer flowering within each group use several different cultivars of the same species, rather than just one. Helenium makes an excellent focal point, but instead of planting three or five Helenium autumnale "Sahin’s Early Flower", add another couple of varieties, following its orange blooms with the coppery-red flower heads of "Moerheim Beauty" and the lighter petals of "Rubinzwerg".
You could use colour rather than species as a repeating theme in the design. Take that impressive beast, Eryngium alpinum, with large cone-like, purplish flower heads, surrounded by 6cm-long, vivid blue spiny bracts borne on blue stems. Then use nepeta and Salvia nemorosa to create a strong blue thread.
Grasses are the classic backbone of prairie plantings but you’ll probably not have space for them. Stipa's tall feathery panicles swaying gently in the wind are hard to beat, but this is a ruthlessly colonising plant and molinia will rapidly crowd out any neighbouring flowers.
Alternatively, for shape and shades of colour, use foliage instead of grass, selecting plants such as Acanthus mollis with its sculptural, glossy leaves. Several cultivars of Sanguisorba officinalis suit this style perfectly and why not take advantage of the striking autumn colours of persicarias and Geranium macrorrhizum?
As a general rule, traditional prairie plants thrive in dry, sunny places, and you’re spoilt for choice. You could include modest achilleas, alliums and asters and add in one or two echinops for a bolder shape.
But don’t despair if you’ve only got a damp and partly shaded area. Persicarias come in all shapes and sizes, from low ground cover types to those reaching one metre. I’m quite taken with Blackfield, which has just come on the market. Its flowering spikes are much darker than the more traditional pinks and reds. And though I don’t fancy persicarias in a border, they sit well in this informal setting, where the flower spikes provide lattices of colour.
Long-term interest has always been a selling point of prairie planting. Autumn flowering is followed by striking seed heads that could last through winter. Frost rimmed teasel heads come into their own. Only in February would the curtain finally fall when you raze everything to the ground – much better than having a dull, well-scalped bed all winter.
But mild and wet winters can undermine this effect, as you could easily have blackened, flattened foliage before February. If this happens, spot clear, removing unsightly foliage whenever necessary, and leave the rest intact.
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