How to Design a Prairie Border for a Small Garden
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 сер 2018
- Garden Ninja shows you how to design a prairie border in a small garden. Prairie borders mimic the Great Plains of America, where grasses and herbaceous flowers take over large drifts of land for a stunning informal planting style However, you don't need acres of land to achieve this in your own garden!
Presented by Garden Ninja, Manchesters Garden Designer and blogger Lee Burkhill. He's an RHS Award winning garden designer and expert panellist on BBC Radio Manchester's Saturday morning garden phone in.
Why not subscribe to my youtube channel? / @gardenninja
Facebook: / gardenninjadesign
Twitter: / garden_ninja
Instagram: / garden_ninja_lee
hi and welcome back to garden ninja now you may have heard the term prairie planting and today you're in for a treat because I'm going to take a small border and I've designed a prairie planting scheme but not only that I'm going to show you exactly how you can achieve this yourself at home using a mixture of traditional prairie plants so come on
let's get cracking!
So this is the bed behind me that I'm gonna be planting up today in a prairie fashion now usually prairie planting you probably thinking rolling gardens massive beds full of Grasses, Heleniums Cone flowers, huge swaythes of plants.
You can still do it in a small garden and on a budget. So I'm gonna show you today how I can apply the prairie planting scheme to this small area and it's all about plant choices and plant placement so come on let me show you how!
So planting up a garden can become expensive quickly especially if you go a bit mad in the garden center buying loads of plants now what I've done is gone to the local nursery and looked at this 'Sale rail' over all the plants of discounting and that's usually because you know the bit past the best or they finish flowering that doesn't bother me so for all these plants like the Achillea and the cone flowers behind me knocked down right and yes some of them have gone past the best and I'm going to prune them up, neaten them and get them in! It saved me a fortune and the next year I'll have an incredible show of flowers.
So before I start to lay out the Prairie planting scheme I want some height and drama so I've got two Carpinus trees that are going to be going in, Hornbeams into these two tree pits that I dug here they'll give me the drama and the height that I need and then weave through the prairie plants of scheme give you some top tips on how you can achieve this yourself at home.
And as if by magic the two trees are now in and they didn't take me about two to three hours to dig the holes!
One of the key features of a prairie border is both a mix of grasses and herbaceous perennials and the way that you space them is key and that's what defines Prairie borders. It's about groups blocks and drifts of plants all together for high impact and that's usually why you do it on a big scale to get bulk mass effect. In a small bed like this we've got between eight to twelve different species and some grasses but again I'm gonna block group them together with the taller plants at the back the shorter towards the front to get with that Prairie feel in a smaller border so I'm gonna carry on laying them out and I'll give you some other tips and how-to arrange your colours.
Here's another good example we've got the two different cultivars of Achillea here we have a 'Terracotta' which has a silver foliage and a different cultivar called 'Walther Funcke' at the back both still orange what's slightly different which then blends and draws over towards the Heleniums here so it's all about mass effect of that color so you can see here how the using orange Heleniums throughout the border to link the colours together.
So just finish planting the prairie border and I'm really impressed with the results and just to summarize the key points that a prairie border is to limit the plant choices so you're going for fewer specimens of plants and grouping them together I've linked the colours through by using the orange and the white Echinacea and got these pops throughout the border big blocks then use different groups of grasses to stop enough to give the illusion of the wild Prairie border.
So this project will probably take you about a weekend to do yourself it's all about restriction of those plant choices if you've liked this video why not subscribe to my youtube channel or stalk me on social media for more garden design how-to hints and tips I've been Garden Ninja, the sun's coming out and it's time for a beer! Happy gardening!
Love this! And it looks great against the wall using the trees and rocks as grounding features as opposed to the loose drifts of windswept plantings done in fields and meadows or against a woodland.
At the first of the summer, I planted my small garden using a similar idea. At the end of the summer, after watching their growth, I am realizing that I used two too many types of perennials (impact is diluted). The block is so much stronger if there is less distraction. I've been worried about what to do and I am just going to have to bite the bullet and get rid of the two and let the rest take over. Brilliant!
Hey Cindy Edwards great to hear from you. Yes it’s so tempting to go for variety in a smaller border. But then competition of each plant begins. With a prairie border it doesn’t matter as things are grouped together more. Maybe extract your least favourites and gift them to a neighbour or pot them up so you can move them round. Happy gardening Cindy! Lee
Very neat , looks great against the aged look brickwork 👍
Thanks Big D. Yes the brickwork really sets it off doesn’t it! Thanks for subscribing. Happy gardening!
very nice and very useful to me. Will follow your steps, Hope the plants like shade.
Hey procekim unfortunately prairie planting usually requires at least some sun. Grasses usually struggle in shade and plants start to lean. I’ve detailed plan choices on my blog gardenninja.co.uk. If you’re using shade plants you may need to substitute the grasses for some other height from say a Cornus or Forsythia instead which will happily grow in shade. All the best! Lee
Hi Lee, another good addition to your channel. Just wondering if you're aware of permaculture techniques and therein will perhaps consider doing some videos around different aspects of that? Would be great to see coming from you if you have time :)
Hi Tiny House, I understand the core principles of permaculture but its a bit of a beast of a design skill to create a completely self-sustaining ecosystem, but I do love a challenge! If I get a client who shows interest I'll certainly dust off my 'Permaculture 101' Books from my horticultural study days and get working some magic! All the best. Lee
Hahaha, thanks Lee. You're right, permaculture is a bit design "beast". Wish we could afford to get you to come to Tasmania and work that magic ;)
It's a shame you're just a tad too far from my usual work radius! ;-)
Looks amazing!! Going to try with 2 large roses instead of the trees as space not big enough - do you reckon will work?
Shakila Taranum Maan if you’re going to go with roses I’d maybe soften the planting a bit by adding some geraniums or ground cover plants like geums. Just to bridge the gap between cottagy roses and the grasses. So they blend rather than stick out! It’s about working with the shapes. You could mix in some pink pheasant grass for example too! Hope that helps. Happy gardening!
Hey Garden Ninja
Which prairie plants do you advice for under a tree in shady soil?
Hey Dave. I’d maybe recommend a more woodland planting scheme for that position. Prairie planting doesn’t really lend itself specifically to shade as the plants would usually be full or part sun. However you can follow the same pattern of planting with things like Carex in place of the shorter grasses, Milum or luzula. Ferns and Hostas work well under tree canopies. I’ve got a blog post on my site about the top 10 plants for shade. Hope that helps! 😀
Do you mind me asking, is your entire scope of work garden design and planting? Or do you do maintenance aswell?
Hey Adam Hartup good to hear from you! It’s nearly all design and planting. It used to include maintenance but my diaries become a bit over loaded recently! Hope you’re well. More exploding atom garden soon!! Lee
А здорово получилось! Жалко, что схемы нет - я бы такой у себя сделала.
Hi! What are the trees that you’ve used here?
Hi Kate. They are Carpinus betulus. You can read more here. www.gardenninja.co.uk/prairie-borders-how-to-design-plant-for-a-small-garden/ Happy gardening! Lee 🥷🌿🤘
@@Gardenninja great, thanks so much!! I need something to go at the back of the prairie border I’m planning to screen the garden from the road, so they might be perfect. I was also looking at Stipa Gigantica, is there anything else you can recommend that would grow >2m?