Green, green grass of home

Aradical approach to gardening an upwardly sloping plot ensures a long season of interest at Kate and Hitesh Patel’s 18th-century home on the English/Welsh border.

Prairie-style planting allows the couple to enjoy a beautiful vista that blends with woodlands, meadows and views of the Wye Valley towards Avonmouth. This planting approach, popularised by the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, uses combinations of ornamental grasses and flowering perennials that gradually build throughout the year to produce dazzling displays by midsummer. Come winter, the borders are filled with attractive seed heads that look fabulous covered in frost. It is a style of planting that tolerates drought and gusty winds and is quick to establish, say Kate and Hitesh, who lived in South-East Asia