Planting New Ways

I've been keeping an interested eye over the past year on a unique (for the moment) planting scheme behind the new glass house at the RHS Garden at Wisley. Different, because there is no planting plan to speak of, interested because 'What? No planting plan? I'm going to go out of business!' There is actually no plan in terms of 'this plant here, that plant there'. Instead the planning is the choice of seed mix. (Yes, seeds, remember them?) James Hitchmough of Sheffield University has been busy for many years developing reliable mixes of perennial plants that can be grown as an annual meadow. The results are nothing less than spectacular. All the plants were apparently transported to the site in Prof. Hitchmough's pocket. With some basic ground preparation and little to no maintenance, a remarkable planting scheme has taken shape. By creating layers of plants, i.e. mostly ground cover, with some medium high 'pretties' and a few taller species with bare stems, a fully structured scheme, without the taller varieties shading the lower ones, is created. From spring into late summer a constantly changing array of beautiful and natural looking (but mostly N American prairie) plants come into flower, so that the area is constantly changing, evolving through the seasons. Even in Autumn you have the structure of the dying stems. Possibly the closest thing to 'all year round interest', an over used (and nearly always impossible) phrase I run into over and over again. I predict, and hope, that this sort of scheme will begin to infiltrate our public spaces and push out the hideous, high maintenance, expensive displays of routine bedding plants that blight roundabouts and parks country wide (this might be a personal view, but luckily for me, I'm right). If we could bring back perennials to these places, local authorities would not only save money but much larger areas could be planted, rather that a few square meters of neon primroses. Sorry to swear, but primroses... Why?
(To be fair to annuals, Prof. Hitchmough's colleague at Sheffield, Dr. Nigel Dunnett, has been doing similar research into annual seed mixes which look just as spectacular).