When I first started gardening, the New Perennial movement had firmly taken hold, and all I wanted was drifts of herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses. The original king of this style of planting is Dutchman Piet Oudolf and I bought his books and tried to recreate my own version of his sweeping perennial meadows in a quarter of an acre Oxfordshire cottage garden. It sort of worked, the oversized plants making the garden seem much bigger than it actually was. I had no interest in shrubs whatsoever. Even the word put me off, conjuring up images of dull, dusty, overgrown plants in neglected municipal parks.
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