Having recently established an experimental, drought-tolerant meadow garden at West Dean College, Tom Brown is well placed to select his list of resilient plants. As head gardener there since 2019, Tom also oversees the renowned walled kitchen garden, but wanted to develop the wider gardens in the college grounds, which had lost definition over the years. ‘I wanted a longer-term, sustainable solution for the area that was formerly the dry garden,’ explains Tom. ‘I had been reading about a Canadian project using crushed concrete and everything about it seemed to make sense. The plants are grown hard, so they are shorter and they flower freely, and it’s a medium that isn’t conducive to weeds.’
In 2023, he had 120 tonnes of crushed concrete delivered from a local recycling centre and spread it in a 10cm layer over the 120-square-metre area. He and his team had been growing hundreds of plants from seed in preparation, focusing largely on species plants that would bring in the pollinators and would self-seed to replace plants that die out. Tom wanted to create an airy, meadow effect, so these are dotted around in a complex matrix rather than planted in clumps. ‘Each member of our team had a single plant type to lay out and they were responsible for spreading that evenly over the whole site,’ he says. ‘This matrix-style planting is more dynamic and forgiving. You’re not pinning yourself down to maintaining a clump of a plant in a specific place, as you do in a traditional border. This method is less static – it gives you freedom to allow plants to move around and replace themselves, and it’s more diverse.’
The plant palette he developed is full of nuanced colour, with a succession of flowers through the seasons. One of the reasons for the range of subtle colour is the fact that species plants have been used, which can be variable in colour. ‘If you choose a particular cultivar, there would be more uniformity in colour, which wouldn’t sit well in this type of planting,’ observes Tom. ‘Using species makes it feel much more natural.’
Many of the plants he has used are North American prairie species, such as Silphium mohrii, Echinacea purpurea and Rudbeckia maxima, with natives such as devil’s bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) and Origanum vulgare, as well as Mediterranean plants like Ligusticum lucidum thrown in, too. ‘I think we are now realising that, while some Mediterranean plants work well in our climate, many of them won’t cope with the wet weather,’ says Tom. ‘The North American plants are more robust and can tolerate being flooded for a day or two over winter, as well as a drought in the summer.’
The biggest change they have seen since this area was planted is a huge increase
in insect life, which Tom has confirmed by carrying out a survey: ‘The ecologist described this part of the garden as a service station for pollinators. It’s a sheltered area with trees around it, it’s warm and it’s full of nectar-rich flowers, so all the insects are coming in and fuelling up before they go elsewhere.’ This – and the plants’ ability to cope with extremes of both wet and dry – affirms the success of the new garden. ‘People are understandably sceptical about using crushed concrete or rubble as a planting medium, but look at the diversity here,’ says Tom. ‘The concrete doesn’t feed the soil, but it does protect it. It’s free-draining, it prevents erosion and it protects
the flora and fauna within it. I don’t think there is one silver bullet with ecological gardening, but you have to be open to what can be achieved.’
Tom’s top 10 resilient plants
Aster x frikartii ‘Mönch’
One of the few named cultivars in the garden, this attracts many pollinators in the late summer and provides intense lavender-blue colour well into the autumn. A traditional border stalwart, it will grow smaller but tougher in impoverished conditions.
Echinacea purpurea
This prairie plant is widely grown in cultivar forms now, while the species itself has been neglected. Its daisy-like blooms appear in varying shades of pink. ‘It’s seen as quite a bog-standard plant,’ says Tom. ‘But it seems to really enjoy the space it has here.’
Gypsophila pacifica
Easily grown from seed, this is a tall perennial with sprays of tiny pale pink or white single flowers, and glaucous, blue-green leaves. ‘It has a robustness that Gypsophila paniculata doesn’t have,’ Tom explains.
Ligusticum lucidum
Also known as Spanish lovage, this umbellifer is drought tolerant, producing large umbels of cow-parsley-like flowers. ‘It’s effortless and natural, and seems to prefer the drier spots,’ observes Tom.
Rudbeckia maxima
This tall and willowy rudbeckia from the prairies of North America has striking flowers with elongated cones that look almost as good in seed as they do
in bloom. The tall stems are skirted by large leaves with a waxy blue-green sheen – one of the elements that indicates this is a more drought-tolerant species than some of the other rudbeckias.
Salvia verticillata
One of the easiest salvias to grow, the whorled sage is tolerant of most extremes of weather. Forming a flower stem of dusky purple, it can be cut back as soon as it has finished flowering to encourage a second flush – or you can just leave the seed heads, which start off apple green and fade to brown.
Silphium mohrii
This useful prairie plant is a more manageable size than some of its loftier cousins, growing to about 1.5 metres tall in crushed concrete. It has a multi-branching habit with lemon-yellow flowers in late summer and is tolerant of long periods of drought.
Succisa pratensis
Devil’s bit scabious is a British wildflower with small, lilac-blue blooms on wiry stems. Loved by bees and butterflies, it will tolerate not only winter wet but also drought when grown in crushed concrete.
Tulbaghia violacea
Also known as society garlic, this small and delicate South African rhizomatous perennial responds particularly well to being grown in crushed concrete, thriving in the well-drained conditions. Reaching about 50cm tall, it produces delicate, mauve-pink blooms throughout the summer and into autumn. The flowers, leaves and stems are all edible.
Verbascum olympicum hybrid
Tom has identified this hybrid between the tall and yellow V. olympicum and the shorter V. phoeniceum ‘Violetta’, and believes it is unique to West Dean. Both these verbascums are short-lived perennials or biennials, but the fact that they have cross-fertilised and self-seeded means they are naturally resilient χ
