“There is no concept of diversity of habitats for wildlife, of puddles for swallows to get mud from to make their nests with.  The shabby charm that once pervaded English country gardens has been lost to horticultural Brazilians”.  “Native trees are replaced with garden-centre specimens – preferably gold, variegated and purple-leaved – all shaped into lollipops”.  “Showy pampas brasses are installed….”  These are direct quotes from Bunty Halbard in the July Tatler…

And straight from the Middle Sized garden written by Alexandra Campbell:    http://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/how-evergreen-shrubs-are-making-a-come-back/  “Apart from geometric box, yew and bay, I haven’t seen many evergreen shrubs featured in garden magazines or on show gardens for ages.  Evergreen shrubs were the backbone of the middle-sized British garden for most of the twentieth century. Carefully planned for a long flowering season, they were planted around a central lawn or lawns, punctuated by occasional statement conifers. Now I see gardens with grasses, perennials, annuals…anything but shrubs”.

So what’s happening to our English gardens?  Are we turning them into unnatural, unsubtle, over maintained, highly clipped, hard landscaped spaces?  What a shame if that is really what is going on.   Let’s get the natural back into our gardens, that is what New Vintage is all about.  Yes you can have contemporary but yes you can have that puddle as well.  And let’s bring back the shrub too to get this softer look back into our gardens.  As so correctly pointed out by Alexandra there is still room for the shrub and everything that goes with it. The backdrop to any beautiful herbaceous border, the mainstay of any good planting plan, the essential ingredient for a New Vintage garden.  The beautiful old shrub with the young perennial.  One cannot do without the other.

Shrubs and perennials working well together

Shrubs and perennials working well together

Shrubs and perennials working well together