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Make a micro-meadow using just five plants

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date11 June 2022
Publication titleHuddersfield Daily Examiner
So says Lucy Bellamy, author and former editor of Gardens Illustrated magazine, who has a small city garden 5m wide by 8m long in Bristol. She has now written Grow 5 - a collection of 52 simple planting 'recipes' featuring seasonal ideas for small outdoor spaces using just five plants

She says that using five types of plants draws on repetition, a key design principle. A combination of five allows the plants to provide the excitement and perform the lion's share of design work.

"I chose five because it's close to nature, where it's really rare to see a monoculture or just one or two plants in a sea of soil.

Lucy "Nature is all about knitting a small group of plants together - and that's what this does. There's been a move in the gardening world into what is called perennial meadows. Whereas a traditional meadow uses annual plants, perennials which look meadowesque will keep coming up year after year but are not necessarily

Bellamy grown from seed every year. They are really easy maintenance but look amazing."

If you have no borders and only a trough or other container to plant in, you can still grow a micromeadow, she insists. Consider your aspect - are you in sun or shade? Think about choosing plants with different shapes - look at the clusters and shape of flowers, consider grasses with fine filigree foliage.

"Think about contrast in shape and the element of repetition, so everything's not the same but everything's not completely different," Lucy advises.

Here, she offers her contemporary take on a micro-meadow.

"The plants I've chosen will all benefit from a sunny position, but they won't need a rich soil," she says. "New contemporary meadows thrive on quite a scratchy, urban soil. To give them extra...

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