I live on a property of about 3 acres in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia where we have a Mediterranean climate and about 800 ml of Winter rain per year.
About half of the property has been maintained by mowing to reduce weeds and comply with council bushfire prevention regulations. Part of this area has some patches of remnant native vegetation and large sections of kangaroo, wallaby and spear grass. These areas I would like to preserve and try to reduce the weeds. Another part has an old patch of Zantedeschia but the bulbs are thinning out leaving large patches of bare soil which needs to be mulched regularly. I have planted some spring bulbs amongst the lily bulbs, hoping that their dying foliage will act as a mulch. I have also planted some ground cover natives like brachyscome, goodenia and scaevola and some Thymus longicaulis. These are all doing well so far with minimal watering.
I am a big fan of Oudolf’s naturalistic meadow gardens and the long lived perennials that he uses that flower in Summer and Autumn. I have planted a small section in this style to see how they fared in my climate with only minimal watering. As I only planted one plant of each type this section suffers from one-of-each-it is at the moment but I have been very pleased with the results as plants like Geranium “rambling robin”, some Oregano, Agastache, Persicaria, Echinacea, Echinops, Verbena, Anthemis, Baptisia, Eupatorium, Salvias, Sanguisorba, Helenium, Gaillardia, Gaura have thrived after a very hot start to our Summer (many days over 40 degrees), but we did have a 3 inch rainfall in early February. (See photo).
How do I mix the plants that I love with the native areas that I already have to produce a cohesive garden?
How do I incorporate different gardens into one garden?
Discussion
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HI Heather, Your perennials are looking great. To tie the two together you could integrate some more native plants/ bushes which are slightly larger than your pretty perennials . This will add contrast and some nice height difference between your smaller perennials and larger existing trees. Some that have worked very well in my garden ( low rainfall and extreme heat) are Correa Alba, Westringia Fruticose, and a Callistemon called great balls of fire.
Hi Heather If you add grasses in with your perennials that will also tie the new garden to the native remnant garden. Especially if some of the grasses you plant are a mix of the same native species and/or include exotic species which are similar in colour to the native ones.
I too love the naturalistic style and live on acreage, but in Hampton NSW. I have planted many of the perennials you have listed above and to meld them with the surrounding bush I have used both native and exotic grasses extensively plus incorporated a number of the species that grow wild on the block within the garden, such as billy buttons, native geraniums.
A couple of thoughts to add to Kate’s and Lynne’s above.
One of the biggest challenges, I find, with this sort of planting, is contextualising it in the larger setting. The whole naturalistic/meadow thing provides an incomparable troupe of dancers, but I doesn’t provide the stage on which the dances perform. You have to do that.
Hmm…. I started to write how that might be done, and then realised there’s a book or two in that subject. It might have to wait for another time. But simply being aware of the need to provide the stage was a lightbulb moment for me. Addressing that will/may help with your integration issues.
The other way I was taught to provide that all-important unity (and taught in a drawing/painting class, not a gardening or garden design class – these lessons seem yet to penetrate our industry) is to ensure the dominance of either a single element, or the dominance, via repetition, of a single motif, in which might appear as a repeated shape, or form (or colour, or texture etc etc). The most powerful way in your setting, I’d suggest, is the repeated shape of, possibly, a clipped shape. See the instagram account of @kurt_wilkinson for an incredible example of this (or my blog piece ‘The Aesthetics of Austerity’, which shows some pics of his garden). At his place, the repeated shape of domes cut out of pretty-much whatever was on site, and whatever else he could get his hands on, holds the whole garden together, and even manages to diffuse the garden into its surrounds. A single shape, or a single, strongly visual species, repeated right across the various planting palettes you’re considering, would really help to hold them together.
A belated thanks for these replies. After a one on one discussion with Michael last year and listening to all of the speakers at the symposium I would really like to enlist the help of a professional to improve my 3 acre garden. After we built the house 30+ years ago, I started planting lots of deciduous trees and then woodland gardens around the house. Many years later the works of Piet Oudolf , Nigel Dunnett and others came to my attention and I have added perennial, cottage type gardens. A part of the property has been left untouched (except for mowing) and now contains many endemic natives including lots of sun orchids and some other orchids, along with problem weeds.
The house is high on a north facing slope with much water runoff and would lend itself to rain gardens but possibly difficult to establish through an established garden.
I would like to consult with a professional (all of the symposium speakers rolled into one) to help improve the plantings in the established woodland and perennial gardens, establish a semi native, cut flower planting to tie the gardens together, talk about water runoff and on how to manage the native area. I am in South Australia and would like suggestions for a plant driven landscaper I could consult with.