Our Prairie Garden

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For a long time I was resistant to this I guess still very fashionable style of gardening.This is partly no doubt because I am pretty resistant to any fashions,; partly also because my favourite garden correspondent - Robin lane-Fox in the Financial Times - has always been pretty sniffy about them. Prairies are essentially for bison, or at least they were until the poor bison were eliminated, and I saw no very good reason to surround our house with large clumps of miscellaneous grasses; and it needs to be emphasized that grasses are the chief components of a prairie. Nevertheless we have ended up with one for reasons I will try and explain.

Our house is situated at the end of a small ridge for the most part facing South-west and as a result much of the garden is on a slope, in places really quite steep and much of it was covered with a mixture of trees, bushes and brambles and the the dreaded Old Man's beard. To create a long vista from the front of the house facing east with a very large oak as a focal point we hired a digger which removed the aforesaid trees, etc., thereby creating a large flattish area cut into the hillside. The result is that from the front door you pass through our so-called gravel garden, then a mown grass area, then a swimming pool, which we have tried to make look as unlike a swimming pool as possible, then another smaller mown grass area, then the Prairie garden followed more grass and a small orchard, and finally the oak tree. To have created anything more formal - a series of hedged compartments, or even serious terracing, would have been difficult, expensive and would have taken a long time to mature, and time is not really on our side. And anyway would any of these solutions have looked appropriate on Gersois hillside? In the end we went for the easiest and cheapest solution, that is to say the Prairie garden. Ten years down the line the question is did we make the right decision? The answer I think is a qualified yes.

To start with the qualifications. In creating a flat area we only reinforced a problem that much of the garden suffers from: heavy clay soil which in winter becomes waterlogged, especially this winter with its abundant rainfall, while because it faces south it can eventually become too dry. Not surprisingly a lot of plants do not like this. For instance we tried the taller eryngiums without much success. More surprisingly we have failed with most of what I used to call Polygonums but are now more often called Persicarias. This is a big loss since the various varieties - P.amplexicaulis and P.bistorta - are usually an important feature of a Prairie garden. Fortunately P.polymorpha is reasonably happy, this an imposing plant that grow to 2 m. and well worth having if you got the space, though unlike some Persicarias it is not invasive. Veronicastrums, not in fact my favourite plant but seems to be 'in' at the moment, have survived without as yet making much impact.

But what about the successes? Well almost all the many Miscanthus do well, and as they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, though all on the large size, this is very good news. Extremely happy are the Macleayas, both cordata and microcarpa. . These can be quite invasive but for the moment I am happy for them to fill up the space, and they look good over a long period. Other successes would include the larger Achilleas but especially 'Parker's Variety", many different Helianthus and tall Rudbeckias, and amongst the Asters it is the A.novae-angliae, such as Barr's Pink that do best. And finally thank the Lord for Gaura lindheimeri which with us has seeded abundantly and looks good, though better in the mornings, for much of the summer.

It is clear that all the successes are what might be called thugs and from high summer onwards rather too many bright yellows, but sadly all attempts  at more refinement have failed. I have mentioned the difficult soil conditions, but another problem is that there are far too many weeds. What we should have done is heavily weed killed the area before planting, and then have left it fallow for at least a year. Not having done this we are never going to be weed free but thanks to the 'thugs' the result from at least July onwards is not too bad, and as Autumn approaches and the grasses change colour it can actually look rather wonderful. At this time of year when everything needs to be cut down it is not work free, but then no gardening is, but by and large we are happy with it.