In 2025 we designed and planted a prairie style garden in North Bedfordshire, working alongside our partner designer, Sue Gilbert Gardens By Design. Our clients wanted more than something beautiful, they wanted a garden built to cope with our increasingly dry summers and our warmer, wetter winters. Prairie style planting was the answer. The soil on site was heavy clay, and most of the planting areas sat in pockets within paved surfaces, which put even more weight on getting the drainage right.

How We Built a Free-Draining Prairie Garden on Heavy Clay Soil

We dug out each planting area to 300mm and blended the topsoil with imported compost and gritty sharp sand, roughly a third of each. This mix was then built back up 6 to 8 inches above the surrounding paving, raising the roots well clear of the heavy clay subsoil below. A geotextile membrane went down for weed suppression, finished with a 40mm layer of 10mm Breedon gravel for a natural texture and tone.

The Results: A Thriving Prairie Garden Within a Year

By spring and summer 2026, the results spoke for themselves. Free from the drag of denser topsoil, the plants grew stronger and quicker, with roots spreading easily to find nutrients. The sand and gravel mulch kept root systems cool and held moisture without waterlogging. Less than a year old, this planting scheme is already thriving, and the photos say more than we can.

Why Choose Prairie Style Planting?

Natural, fresh and full of that homegrown feel, prairie style planting is a garden that keeps evolving. It has taken off globally over the last few years, especially in the US, Australia, Scandinavia and here in the UK, largely thanks to how well it copes with drought.

The benefits:

• Drought resistant

• Low maintenance, once established

• Year-round interest across every season

• A planting style that appeals to the senses

• Attractive to pollinators

• Autumn seedheads provide food for native birds

• Creates habitat for small mammals, frogs and toads

Get the plant selection and structure right, and you can build your own Little House on the Prairie.

How to Create Your Own Prairie Paradise: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Layer vertically and horizontally with a repeating pattern of plants.

2. Space plants so that at maturity they touch and merge into one flowing mass, think of a river rather than individual clumps.

3. Repeat colour and texture to build a pattern the eye can follow.

4. Lean on ornamental grasses. They’re the glue that holds a prairie scheme together.

Best Plants for Prairie Style Planting in the UK

A prairie planting scheme relies on a mix of grasses and flowering perennials. It works best in larger areas, but the same relaxed, naturalistic feel translates to smaller gardens too. Be ready to embrace the many shades of brown and beige this style brings through autumn and winter, it's part of the appeal, not a flaw.

Plants We Used in Our Bedfordshire Prairie Garden

Evergreen shrubs (low-growing, year-round structure):

• Pinus mugo ‘Carsten’s Wintergold’

• Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Golf Ball’

Perennials:

• Erigeron karvinskianus

• Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’

• Verbena bonariensis ‘Lollipop’

• Hylotelephium (Sedum) spectabile ‘Iceberg’

• Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain’

• Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’

• Stachys byzantina ‘Silver Carpet’

• Agapanthus campanulatus var. albidus

• Geranium ‘Azure Rush’

• Stipa ichu

• Verbascum chaixii

• Miscanthus sinensis ‘Kleine Silberspinne’ / ‘Kleine Fontäne’

• Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’