Unique Planting Plans

The Cutting Garden

The client's brief was to create a traditional cutting garden. The triangular site, set within a country-style garden and measuring roughly 15 x 15 x 28 feet, is open and sunny. The owner also wanted the planting to create more privacy along the boundary, and the flat site needed some vertical accents to add interest.

Plants Used

Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula'
Anemanthele lessoniana
Euphorbia x martini (turns pink)
Miscanthus sinensis ‘Flamingo'
Echinacea purpurea
Lysimachia ephemerum

Design in Focus

A broad range of plants that bloom from spring to late summer ensures a season-long supply of flowers for cutting, and the rich mix adds to the overall feeling of abundance. Because foliage is available from shrubs elsewhere in the garden, the planting is mainly herbaceous with an interplanting of spring and summer bulbs, such as alliums, lilies, and dahlias. Dotted throughout the garden, spaces have been left empty for seasonal color from annuals and wallflowers.

A pleached hornbeam hedge (Carpinus betulus) gives privacy along the boundary wall (beyond this plan): the top branches block prying eyes, while bare lower stems allow a view of a decorative stone wall.

Height was needed to break up the flat terrain, and the weeping pear (Pyrus), with its clear stem and airy canopy, offers color and structure, without blocking the view. It also responds well to pruning.