This plan, as its title suggests, is a combination of plants taken from the Native and Cultivated Borders, above. Cultivated varieties are in the majority, however, because I envisage this plan being incorporated more readily into an existing garden than the straightforward Native Naturalistic Border.
This plan is for a bed 2.5 metres by 2.5 metres in size but it can easily be duplicated to fill a larger space if desired.
Focus and framework
Because the area is relatively small, focus and framework plants don’t feature in this plan at all, but, as with the Native Naturalistic Border, you could incorporate a crab apple, Malus sylvestris, if you have a larger area.
Flowers
I would wager that some people would be hard pushed to distinguish the native specimens from the ‘garden’ ones in this plan: I think it is particularly true of Geranium pratense, whose violet-blue flowers are every bit as good as some of its cultivated cousins.
Fillers
Having seen Camassia dotted through a managed flower meadow I couldn’t resist following suit: their presence gives an almost regal air to the area at the end of spring before the infill baton is taken over by Allium ‘Purple Sensation’.
Plant families
Primary and Secondary families, beloved by bees, are the mainstay of this collection, although a number of plants from Other families are also included.