Sometimes, less is more

FASHIONS in gardening come and go like those on the catwalk, they simply take a lot longer doing so: sometimes decades.

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When I started unravelling the reams of previously little-known and rarely used grasses and perennial prairie plants that shot to fame in the late 1990s with the arrival of the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, I don’t remember thinking that this northern European naturalistic planting would still be influencing British gardens 30 years on.

The point about Mr Oudolf is that he has an artist’s eye and an architect’s confidence; he uses plants for their colours and forms, enjoying the way that blocks of single species can create powerful waves across his typically large growing areas. Yet he has a deep knowledge of plants and takes inspiration from Nature, so the results are always sympathetic to their surroundings and the colours gentle and muted, in the best possible way.