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Tag: Irises

  • Jo Thompson’s ‘The New Romantic Garden’: Design Ideas to Steal From Her New Book

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    All week, we’re revisiting the most popular stories of 2025, including this one from March.

    Anyone who knows British garden designer Jo Thompson’s work will not be surprised by the title of her book, The New Romantic Garden. Over the decades that Thompson has been working as a designer she, has always created atmospheric gardens with a softness and sense of atmosphere and mystery. The 30 gardens that fill the book show how a modern romantic aesthetic can be applied anywhere—from a tiny city garden to the meadows of a country estate. Thompson’s text is delightfully laced with romance, too, with references to fairies, sun goddesses, and Narnia.

    Benton irises and roses mingle in this romantic London garden designed by Thompson. Photograph by Jason Ingram.
    Above: Benton irises and roses mingle in this romantic London garden designed by Thompson. Photograph by Jason Ingram.

    The “new” in the title reflects the fact that while Thompson’s work may feel nostalgic in some regards (there are many an English rose in this book), it is firmly of-the-moment. A longtime advocate of organic gardening, Thompson designs to support biodiversity and soil health, which are on all gardeners’ minds today. There’s also a looseness and a naturalness that will appeal to fans of the new perennial movement and more naturalistic styles. This book is a fresh perspective on what a “romantic” garden is today.

    Photography courtesy of The New Romantic Garden by Jo Thompson (Rizzoli).

    1. Start with the story.

    Romantic and natural, this garden has a real sense of place and to whom it belongs (writer Justine Picardie and her husband, Philip Astor). The wildflower meadow of mostly native grasses is peppered with a few nonnatives to extend the season of pollen and visual interest. Photograph by Rachel Warne.
    Above: Romantic and natural, this garden has a real sense of place and to whom it belongs (writer Justine Picardie and her husband, Philip Astor). The wildflower meadow of mostly native grasses is peppered with a few nonnatives to extend the season of pollen and visual interest. Photograph by Rachel Warne.

    For all of her designs, Thompson develops a story for the garden based on her clients’ desires and the place itself. For Thompson this involves “beating the bounds of the place and really getting to grips with the space,” plus trying to understand its history and what might have been there before. But she says, storytelling can be a delicate dance. “You want to avoid creating a pastiche,” she cautions. “If I’m working with a Tudor cottage near Canterbury, I’m not going to create a little Tudor medicinal garden, but there might be elements, like medicinal plants within the planting.” Likewise, Thompson says she trusts her intuition not to take a garden too far from its roots.

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  • Native Irises: The Best Low-Maintenance Irises Indigenous to the U.S.

    Native Irises: The Best Low-Maintenance Irises Indigenous to the U.S.

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    “Irises were my first love,” says horticulturalist Kelly D. Norris, the garden author and designer known for his “new naturalism” garden style. He started out managing his family’s iris farm and eventually became a noted iris expert, writing A Guide to Bearded Irises. However, it’s not just the dizzying array of bearded irises that Norris fell hard for: He loved the beardless native irises, too. “The farm I grew up on was not far removed from native prairie remnants, including some that bordered the river. All of the little swales where they’d dug for the railroad tracks and disturbed the floodplain were home to large colonies of Iris virginica,” he remembers. On one occasion, teenage Norris took a potato fork to dig up a patch of irises in the path of development.

    Indigenous irises often get less attention than their cultivated counterparts, but as gardeners aspire to plant more natives and design landscapes that better manage rainwater, American irises deserve a second look. Unlike imported irises, native irises are low-maintenance: They don’t require fertilization, and once established they will spread and come back bigger year after year. Even when not in bloom, many native irises have foliage that offers substantial architectural quality. And while we do not yet know about specific host plant relationships, they are beloved by bees, moths, and butterflies. 

    Native irises, and blue flag irises in particular, are often well-suited to rain gardens and bioswales, which mimic their natural habitats near ponds and streams. Writing for the Ecological Landscape Alliance, Dr. Catherine Neal, a horticulture professor at the University of New Hampshire, noted, “Blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) is a plant that seems to be highly adapted to the lowest area of the rain garden—we have seen it survive where many other species have failed.” Norris has personally been experimenting with breeding native irises, hoping to tease out selections from wild populations that could have a little more horticultural interest in bioswales and green infrastructure. “We need a plant palette for that,” he says.

    There are only 28 native iris species in the U.S. (although that number may vary slightly depending on who you talk to), but because they hybridize easily both in nature and with human assistance, there are hundreds of garden forms in cultivation. Plantsman Bob Pries, an iris hybridizer and longtime member and spokesperson for the American Iris Society, encourages gardeners interested in native irises to join Species Iris Group of North America (SIGNA). “They have a seed exchange, which is one of the easiest ways for people to get seeds of a lot of these plants,” says Pries. (Iris lovers might also explore the Society’s Iris Encyclopedia, which lists about 80,000(!) different cultivars of irises, mostly non-native, that have been registered.)

    Here’s a primer on the irises native to the United States:

    Blue Flag Irises

    Above: In the “valley” of Norris’s own Three Oaks garden, an homage to wet ditch flora features ‘Purple Flame’, a selection of I. versicolor from Mt. Cuba Center.
    Above: In the “valley” of Norris’s own Three Oaks garden, an homage to wet ditch flora features ‘Purple Flame’, a selection of I. versicolor from Mt. Cuba Center.

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  • Designer Visit: Sheila Jack’s White Garden in West London – Gardenista

    Designer Visit: Sheila Jack’s White Garden in West London – Gardenista

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    A career in art direction is a useful grounding for anybody wishing to go into garden design. Sheila Jack’s career shift was not so much a break as a continuum—of research, editing, and presentation. Before designing the pages of Vogue magazine, her first job was for the architect Norman Foster, and these visual strands from the past feed into her present-day career as a landscape designer.

    We visit the project which turned Sheila’s design ideas into something more three-dimensional: her own urban garden.

    Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer for Gardenista, except where noted.

    A work studio faces the house in Sheila Jack
    Above: A work studio faces the house in Sheila Jack’s garden in Hammersmith, London.

    “When we installed my husband’s garden studio, we needed to create a pathway to it,” explains Sheila of the garden’s layout. “Our children were beyond the need for lawn, so there was scope to include more planting.”

    Photograph by Sheila Jack.
    Above: Photograph by Sheila Jack.

    I first met Sheila by the photocopying machine at Tatler magazine, several decades ago. Amid the madness, Sheila stood out as a beacon of clarity, in a crisp white shirt. A few years later I spotted Sheila, ever crisp, at 444 Madison Avenue, a recent arrival at Condé Nast in New York. While I failed to take my job on the 17th floor seriously, Sheila worked hard downstairs, in the scary offices of Vogue. Fast-forwarding a few years, she suddenly appeared on Instagram, with beautifully composed pictures of gardens, in focus. How had she got from there to here?

    Sheila
    Above: Sheila’s London garden of mainly green and white.

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  • Tom Massey’s Water Aid Garden at the 2024 Chelsea Flower Show

    Tom Massey’s Water Aid Garden at the 2024 Chelsea Flower Show

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    One way to get people thinking, when it comes to the environment, is to offer beauty, and this is what Tom Massey and the architect Je Ahn have done on the Water Aid garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. Instead of a 3-dimensional check list reminding you how to be a good citizen, they have made a magical space that also happens to be fully functional on an environmental level. This is the best kind of garden design; it is subtle and inviting.

    Rainwater is the theme, and it’s a good one, with many of us experiencing too much, too little or, increasingly, both in any given year. Let’s look at some of the garden’s ideas on rainwater as a resource, rather than just a by-product of weather:

    Photography by Jim Powell for Gardenista, unless otherwise noted.

    1. Your roof can be a sponge.

    Above: Rusted spiral cladding mimics water going down a drain, on a somehow lightweight structure by Je Ahn of Studio Weave. Like plant containers with drainage, the haze around the top is flowers.

    The Water Aid garden commands the biggest plot on the show ground, but it also grew considerably when Je Ahn’s water harvesting structure went up, creating an extra planting plane for Tom Massey’s rooftop garden. The structure is huge but graceful, irrigating the plants, filtering rainwater and using gravity to pull it down for storage underground. It also provides permanent shade.

    2. Mimic the wider landscape.

    Above: Iris sibirica ‘Perry’s Blue’ and Trollius ‘Cheddar’, plants that would naturally live in meadows that have permanent moisture and are occasionally flooded.

    Respecting the lay of the land, and exaggerating natural dips and contours by shaping them into swales, gives rainwater somewhere to go. A flattened garden, especially one that is bone dry, is just another hard plane that adds water run-off to all the rest. Run-off leads to overflowing sewage plants, and washes nutrients (and chemicals) off land, polluting rivers. On the other hand, variations in topography bring a variety of moisture levels, and a greater choice of plants.

    3. Make a flyover.

    Above: A modular boardwalk is made with panels of slatted wood and rusted metal grills that connect with the floating garden plane above. Planting at ground level is mainly green and rust, with clear blue irises ringing out.

    Building ponds and improving streams is another way of embracing the fact of rainwater, rather than fretting about fluctuating swamp conditions. Elevate this, and yourself, with a simple means of getting across; via a boardwalk or bridge. Straight lines and right angles flatter wilder planting that loves the conditions.

    4. Keep it soggy.

    Above: Wet meadow plants Rodgersia pinnata ‘Superba’, Iris sibirica ‘Tropic Night’ and foxglove Digitalis purpurea.

    Make sure your storage capacity isn’t full when rain is predicted; use overflow pipes and backup storage, or “leaky” water butts that slowly release water into the ground, since terrain that is not rock hard has better absorbing qualities.

    5. Choose trees.

    Above: Pollution-tolerant and soil-cleaning alder (this one is Alnus glutinosa ‘Laciniata’) at left, with another British native, field maple (Acer campestre) at right. Pinus mugo, center, has an evergreen presence.

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  • Alan Calpe and Christopher Crawford of Gardenheir: An Interview with the Shopkeepers

    Alan Calpe and Christopher Crawford of Gardenheir: An Interview with the Shopkeepers

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    We didn’t know we needed quietly stylish workwear and Italian garden clogs in our lives until Alan Calpe and Christopher Crawford’s Gardenheir came along. Now, like many others who’ve discovered their website or wandered into their chic shop in Windham, NY, we’re obsessed. The pair founded the business “after becoming more and more consumed as we made our first garden in Upstate New York,” says Alan, who has a background in visual arts and art education; Christopher comes from fashion design. Next up for the enterprising couple: “We recently purchased the property next door and much of it is quite wet land, so we are slowly working towards creating a wild, meandering bog garden.” 

    Ready to find out what they wear when they garden (spoiler alert: it’s not Crocs) and how they use dryer sheets to fend off bugs?

    Photography courtesy of Gardenheir.

    Above: Christopher and Alan (right) in their moonlight garden.

    Your first garden memory:

    Alan: One of my oldest friends’ mom was an avid gardener and made a beautifully jungly Florida garden that welcomed you through the front door. I wish I could’ve told her just how much of an influence she was, from peeking into her floral arranging workshop to her once making me a gift of a large strawberry pot dripping of herbs to accompany me to college. I’d consider it my first garden, actually.

    Book/show/movie/art that has influenced your work:

    The couple knew nothing about gardening when they purchased their 4-acre property in Upstate NY—but they were diligent students, reading everything they could on plants and garden design. See Lessons Learned: The Founders of Gardenheir Share the Highs and Lows of Designing Their First Garden.
    Above: The couple knew nothing about gardening when they purchased their 4-acre property in Upstate NY—but they were diligent students, reading everything they could on plants and garden design. See Lessons Learned: The Founders of Gardenheir Share the Highs and Lows of Designing Their First Garden.

    Christopher: Early on, reading other’s accounts of making their first gardens, like Margery Fish’s We Made a Garden and Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden. The unknowing, the failures and pleasures, resonated with us as we fumbled through our beginning gestures.

    Alan: Gilles Clément’s The Planetary Garden and Other Writings shapes a philosophical approach to gardening that I think about often. There’s still much of his work that I don’t think I completely grasp, but it challenges us to look deeply, think more deeply, into the decisions we make in the garden.

    Garden-related book you return to time and again:

    Alan: We have a copy of Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature in plain view in our home. Because it’s written as diaristic entries arranged through the passing of a year, we often will pick it up to read the chapter that coincides with our own time, to bring him and his garden at Dungeness close to us.

    Instagram account that inspires you:

    Christopher: Dan Pearson @coyotewillow. Monty Don @themontydon, of course.

    Plant that makes you swoon:

    Iris fulva.
    Above: Iris fulva.

    Alan: Iris fulva (copper iris). A native iris with a perfectly simple form and seductive rusty tones.

    Plant that makes you want to run the other way:

    Christopher: Burdocks, Japanese knotweed.

    Favorite go-to plant:

    Ornamental grasses planted in their landscape include Deschampsia cespitosa and the Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’.
    Above: Ornamental grasses planted in their landscape include Deschampsia cespitosa and the Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’.

    Christopher: Still a sucker for heirloom roses even if they’re finicky in our garden. Pycnanthemum (mountain mints) for sure.

    Alan: Also, our garden would be nothing without the structural ornamental grasses.

    Most dreaded gardening chore:

    Christopher: Picking off Japanese beetles.

    Unpopular gardening opinion:

    Alan: We have a hard time getting rid of plants that we’ve fallen out of favor with or might not even be thriving so well. It’s sort of like a bad tattoo that you refuse to remove because it reminds you of a particular time in your life. (Even if it’s relegated to a far-off corner somewhere!)

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