According to Pinterest wild gardens are in the top ten emerging gardening trends in 2021, wildgarden was the number 2 hashtag (just under balcony gardening). However the wild garden isn’t a new concept, William Robinson (botanist, gardener and owner of GraveTye Manor) was writing about them in 1870,

“Among my reasons for thinking wild gardening worth practicing … the finest hardy flowers will thrive much better in rough places than ever they did in the old-fashioned border.”

William Robinson, The Wild Garden (1870)

Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain’ with grasses and echinacea

What is a Wild Garden?

So what is a wild garden? It is a more considered approach to the surroundings, choosing plants that will thrive with minimal care, for example looking at woodlands for inspiration for shady areas of the garden. It is also about taking a less formal approach, a looser style of planting where the plants merge or flop into each other and billow onto the lawn or path. Moving away from less formal rows of plants, perhaps scattering bulbs through the grass to create a less manicured space. Turning the garden into a less sterile environment, with longer flowering season plants that encourages bees and butterflies into the garden.

Camassias planted through grass

What it isn’t

Robinson explains that a wild garden shouldn’t be confused with a wilderness, it’s not about an overgrown pile of brambles, neither does a more formal garden need to be ripped out and replanted. It can be as simple as weaving a few extra plants through a border to create a looser style of planting or leaving a formal area around the house and creating wilder spaces around the lawn or at the end of the garden.

Planting Examples

To give the planting a looser style Geraniums are the original long and loose flowering perennial, the delicate blue of Geranium × johnsonii ‘Johnson’s Blue’ or the lilac of Geranium nodosum, flowering away from May until September and often on until the frosts start appearing. At this time of year salvias will add a hit of blue or purple to a border, Saliva nemorosa‘Caradonna’ not only has spires of indigo flowers but black-blue stems that will flower all summer long and pack a punch in any border. Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain’ is another stunning variety with deep red-black stems and whorls of purple flowers, the flowers seem to hover when seen peaking through grasses. At the front of the border or in small gaps, the delicate pink and white daisies of Erigeron karvinskianus (Mexican fleabane)

Geraniums

English shrub roses will flower all summer long, bursting into bloom in late spring/early summer and flowering away until the first frosts in Autumn. One of my favourites is Rosa ‘Desdemona’ that starts off with a peachy tinge opening to a fragrant white scented flower (I have it trained along the fence). Under-planting roses immediately creates a less formal look and adds interest, whether through colour geraniums will happily wrap themselves around the stems or texture from leaves, the wispiness of Stipa tenuissima(the ponytail grass). Or perhaps the pincushions of Astrantia, ranging from the white with pink tips of Astrantia‘Buckland’, the pink of Roma or the deep red of Astrantia major‘Claret’.

Astrantia as part of a mixed border

About the Author

Camilla Grayley is a garden designer based in York, mainly working in and around Yorkshire but has travelled up and down the UK to design gardens and is always happy to travel to help clients with their gardens. I love creating gardens with strong architectural outlines softened by voluminous planting that draws on year round interest, ensuring there is something to capture the eye whatever the season. Gardens should always evoke all the senses from the colour palette on the eye, to the rustling of plants swaying in the wind to the amazing perfumes that can be inhaled, whether on a summer’s evening or the depth of winter.

Services

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