At Beth Chatto’s Plants for Dry Gardens in Essex, the new gravel garden trials are catalysing a shift among designers towards species that thrive on neglect, echoing the nursery’s ethos of right plant, right place. This year, the profession is mining a deeper palette of resilient perennials, sculptural grasses and long-flowering Mediterranean natives that promise gardens of character with less intervention. The result is a collective move away from high-input bedding and towards plantings that retain their structure, movement and ecological value well into autumn and winter. Here, leading designers share the plants and combinations they are championing for the coming season, along with the thinking behind each selection.
The Resurgence of the Perennial Meadow
Perennial meadow planting, once dominated by the classic mix of Nepeta and Salvia, is being reworked with a much broader cast. Designer Dan Pearson is introducing Orlaya grandiflora into his schemes for its airy, cow-parsley-like umbels that extend the flowering season without dominating. He interplants it with the soft blue spikes of Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ and the airy panicles of Stipa tenuissima, which catch the light long after the flowers fade. At his Somerset project, Pearson has also used Verbena bonariensis in generous drifts, its wiry stems hovering above lower plantings to create a translucent layer that moves with every breeze.
Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, whose work continues to influence the profession, is refining his matrix planting technique with a focus on Sesleria autumnalis, a short, evergreen meadow grass that forms a tidy cushion beneath taller perennials. He pairs it with the dark-centred Echinacea pallida and the purple-red umbels of Astrantia major ‘Claret’, achieving a tapestry that is both richly textured and long-lasting. This approach reduces the need for staking and deadheading, as the grasses support the perennials while the seedheads persist through winter.
Sculptural Seedheads and Winter Structure
A defining feature of current design is the deliberate retention of dead and dormant plant material for its architectural value. Designer Sarah Price is planting Phlomis russeliana in bold groups, not only for its hooded yellow flowers in early summer but for the tiered whorls of seedheads that stand like miniature pagodas through the darkest months. She combines them with the flat, rusty-brown umbels of Selinum wallichianum and the dark, branching skeletons of Sanguisorba officinalis ‘Red Thunder’, which catch low winter sunlight and provide habitat for overwintering insects.
The beauty of a garden in January is no longer an afterthought. Clients are actively requesting plants that look as compelling in decay as they do in full bloom, and that means selecting species with a strong architectural skeleton.
Tom Stuart-Smith, whose designs for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show have long championed naturalistic planting, is experimenting with Eryngium yuccifolium, a rattlesnake master with yucca-like leaves and globular, silvery flowerheads that dry to a stiff, sculptural form. He uses it as a repeated motif through large borders, where its structural permanence anchors more ephemeral companions such as Gaura lindheimeri ‘Whirling Butterflies’. Sunlight playing on these rigid forms creates a visual link from summer through to late winter, when frost outlines every spine and bract.
Drought-Defying Mediterranean Natives
As water restrictions tighten, designers are looking beyond lavender and rosemary to the wider flora of the Mediterranean basin. Cleve West, who transformed the dry, free-draining soil at his own garden in Somerset, is promoting the use of Cistus × purpureus with its crumpled pink petals and evergreen, resinous foliage. He underplants it with the low, mat-forming Thymus vulgaris ‘Silver Posie’ and the ground-hugging Acaena inermis ‘Purpurea’, whose bronze leaves tolerate reflected heat. West sources many of these plants from **Special Plants Nursery** near Bath, which has seen a surge in demand for xerophytic shrubs.
In a similar vein, designer James Basson, known for his work on dry, stony soils in the south of France, is increasingly specifying Ballota pseudodictamnus for its felted, grey-green leaves and whorled flowers that persist long after blooming. He combines it with the upright, silvery Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ and the globe thistle Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’, creating a shimmering, heat-reflective palette that needs no irrigation once established. These plantings are being tested at the **Beth Chatto Gardens** nursery, where the gravel garden acts as a living catalogue of plants that can survive on rainfall alone.
We are moving away from the idea that a garden must be green and lush. Silver, grey and blue-grey foliage not only copes with drought but also offers a sophistication that rich greens cannot match in bright sunlight.
The Return of the Stately Echium
Among the most striking plants gaining renewed attention is the genus Echium, particularly the biennial Echium pininana, which can tower three metres or more in a single season. Designer Jo Thompson, working on coastal gardens in Sussex, has been planting drifts of these giant blue spires as exclamation marks within a matrix of softer, lower plants. She warns that they require excellent drainage and some winter protection, but the payoff is spectacular. Thompson recommends surrounding them with the frothy lime-green flowers of Euphorbia oblongata and the fine-textured Nassella tenuissima to soften their verticality.
For colder gardens, designers are turning to the hardier Echium vulgare, the viper’s bugloss, a native biennial with intense blue flowers that attract bees from far afield. Nigel Dunnett, professor of planting design at the University of Sheffield, incorporates it into his pictorial meadow mixes as a midsummer highlight, alongside the red spikes of Digitalis ferruginea and the yellow daisies of Rudbeckia hirta. This combination achieves a wilder, more dynamic look while being entirely achievable from seed sown direct on a prepared site.
Layered Woodland Planting for Shade
Shade gardening is being reimagined as a layered, textural endeavour rather than a collection of hostas and ferns. Designer Arne Maynard, working on a woodland garden in Gloucestershire, is using a ground layer of Asarum europaeum with its glossy, kidney-shaped leaves, overplanted with the nodding, pale yellow bells of Uvularia grandiflora and the ferny foliage of Epimedium × versicolor ‘Sulphureum’. To this he adds the late-summer spark of Tricyrtis formosana, the toad lily, whose orchid-like spotted flowers appear when other shade plants have faded.
At the **RHS Garden Wisley**, the new Piet Oudolf-designed Glasshouse Borders demonstrate how Persicaria virginiana ‘Painter’s Palette’ can illuminate a shady corner with its variegated leaves splashed in cream and burgundy. This underused perennial forms a tidy clump and combines well with the dark, divided foliage of Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’ and the arching stems of Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’. The whole composition relies on leaf form and colour rather than flower, providing a long season of interest with minimal maintenance.
Designers’ Picks: Five Plants to Source Now
Leading designers are rarely without a personal list of plants they would use repeatedly. This year, several species are appearing on multiple shortlists. Agastache ‘Blackadder’ is prized for its long succession of deep violet-blue spikes and liquorice-scented foliage; it thrives in full sun and well-drained soil, and is available from **Marchants Hardy Plants** in East Sussex. Stachys monieri ‘Hummelo’ forms a neat rosette of green leaves topped with stout spikes of rosy-purple flowers that stand well without staking; a favourite of Tom Stuart-Smith, it can be found at **Cotswold Garden Flowers**.
For grasses, Pennisetum orientale ‘Tall Tails’ is gaining favour for its soft, rabbit-tail flowers that appear earlier than most, nodding gracefully over a low mound of foliage. Nurserywoman Marina Christopher of **Phoenix Perennial Plants** reports that designers are ordering it in bulk for mass planting. The annual climber Rhodochiton atrosanguineus, with its dangling tubular maroon flowers, is being threaded through shrubs in city gardens by designer Charlotte Harris, who recommends the seed from **Chiltern Seeds**. Finally, the shrub Deutzia setchuenensis var. corymbiflora from **Burncoose Nurseries** in Cornwall is being used as an alternative to the overused hydrangea, its loose clusters of white, starry flowers appearing in early summer against peeling, cinnamon-coloured bark.
These plants reflect a broader movement in design: a rejection of the quick fix and the seasonal bedding carousel in favour of enduring, self-sufficient plant communities that evolve over time. The message from the design world is clear: if your garden isn’t looking slightly unkempt by August, you might be missing the point.
The gravel garden trials at Beth Chatto’s nursery are not merely a demonstration of drought-tolerant planting; they are a living laboratory that has quietly redefined the nursery’s own stocklist. Head gardener David Hunn, who has overseen the trials for the past three seasons, has recorded more than 400 species in the gravel garden, with a focus on those that seed themselves freely without becoming invasive. Erigeron karvinskianus, the Mexican fleabane, has naturalised across the site, its white-to-pink daisies appearing from May to November on no irrigation. Hunn recommends sourcing British-grown seed from **Plant World Seeds** in Devon, where the strain has been selected for its compact habit and extended flowering period.
Hunn’s records show that the most successful self-seeders in the gravel garden are those with small, wind-dispersed seeds that lodge in the grit mulch. Verbascum bombyciferum, the giant mullein, appears in drifts between the Stipa gigantea clumps, its silver-felted rosettes surviving winter wet better when sown in situ from **Kenton Nurseries** seeds. Hunn has also been tracking the performance of Selaginella kraussiana ‘Aurea’, a low-growing clubmoss that spreads through the gravel as a groundcover, its golden foliage providing a contrast to the grey-leaved cistus and lavender. He warns that it requires excellent drainage and partial shade, but it has proved reliable in the garden’s free-draining south-facing bank.
The nursery’s propagation team has begun multiplying the most promising self-seeders for sale, including a selected form of Anthemis tinctoria ‘Sauce Hollandaise’ that has maintained its creamy-yellow flowers for up to twelve weeks without deadheading. This cultivar, discovered as a chance seedling in the gravel garden, is now available from **Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants** in Hampshire. Hunn’s data suggests that allowing self-seeding not only reduces labour but creates a more resilient plant community, as the seedlings are adapted to the precise microclimate of the garden. The gravel garden, now entering its fifth year, has become a model for low-input planting that evolves with each season, its composition shifting subtly as species jostle for position in the thin, stony soil.
