Time to cut your meadows

This might seem a bit of a strange post but more and more of our customers with large gardens are opting to plant perennial meadows. You might have visited the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (we were advisers on part of the scheme for the site) and seen the amazing pictorial meadows that were designed and planted especially for the 2012 London Olympics. Well we learned lots of lessons about how to create sustainable and long lasting colour in planting and now we’re benefitting.

Even small spaces can benefit from a pictorial meadow. The picture above shows part of a 500 square metre meadow planted in the shade of some very old oak trees. We’ve used a woodland edge mix that starts with some yellow but quickly gives blues and eventually this high density of creamy white Ammi in high summer. We’ve cut this back to 8 inches now so that other perennials can establish for the second and succeeding years. Plants like evening primrose Oenoethera odorata introduced by the Veitch Nurseries in Victorian times but now an essential part of an English summer garden.

If you’re interested in establishing a colourful summer meadow give us a call to find out more.