Tag: garden border design

FAREWELL TO THE IRIS BORDER: A FINAL LOOK BEFORE THE TRANSFORMATION INTO THE BENTON BORDER

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The Border as It Stands

Here it is, in full—May 2025, in a blaze of purple, mauve, acid yellow, and soft steel.

View of the Iris Border in full bloom with Allium Gladiator and bearded irises in May 2025.

The back is lined with dark tulips (Queen of Night, still clinging on), and the stone wall gives it a whiff of a Roman ruin. There’s something restrained, almost architectural, about this year’s display. A final nod to its original formal intention before we let it get a little looser, a little loucher.

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MY NAME IS RED: DESIGNING A GARDEN BORDER AS LIVING NARRATIVE

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Prologue: The Broken Border

An overgrown compost heap and toppled archway with a weathered football nestled in weeds below a stone wall.

Every garden has its secret shame. Here, it was the back border — the stretch beneath the old stone wall that separates us from the local primary school. A wilderness, really. Brambles. A compost heap verging on sentience. Turf stacked like a geological layer. Even a football. Watching me. Always watching.

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