Are Traditional Gardens Dead? Part 2: Summer Colour

Hannah Phillips • 26 August 2026

family gardens, family garden design, gardening with kids

Part 2: Summer Colour. Has this Summer left your garden looking less than colourful? It might be time to rethink your long term plant choices.

Dry Summers are brutal for a lot of our nations beloved, traditional garden plants.

If the aim is survival on minimum inputs specifically, water, we need to proactively consider the planting our gardens contain and manage our expectations of what they will look like.

Trial by drought

The work of the late, great Nigel Dunnett, James Hitchmough and many others have led the way on low input - high impact planting - making it a mainstream option for designing green spaces particularly, within the public realm (think Sheffields Grey to Green schemes).
However, there is still some way to go in weaning the wider gardening public off some of the more traditional routes to a colourful, Summer garden.

What I’m doing

My own garden is looking pretty crispy in places. I really haven’t watered any of the beds in my garden this Summer with the exception of a couple of Peonies I have a soft spot for but, I’ve definitely lost quite a few plants and I know I need to change up not just the type of plants I use. More plants! Specifically in areas that currently feel baked dry for their inherent cooling effect and shade in the Summer and their ability to take up water in the Winter. .

Despite the fact I have access to river water, collect and store rain water as much as I can (and have been making the family shower over buckets and boxes this Summer!) it’s fair to say I’d rather not spend a miserably hot Summer watering things that aren’t realistically going to survive the long haul.

Taking stock of what the last few months have done to the established planting I have and seeing what adjustments are required will hopefully stand me in better stead in the Summers to come.

Look beyond the bedding for Summer colour:

I’m not adverse to a pot of flouncy bedding plants in the right spot (and those will need watering!) and self-set annuals like Nigella are a joy anywhere. However, the traditional bedding display may (should?) become a thing of the past.
Resource intensive to produce, wasteful when it gets scrapped after flowering, these plants don’t have chance to put down meaningful roots and are the first to flop when it’s dry.

Switching to annual wildflower varieties like Cornflowers, Poppies, Wild Carrot and Scabious that thrive in scant conditions and growing from seed gives the best chance of establishing strong roots and being more resilient whatever the season throws at them.

Once the above plants get going, I collect their seeds to scatter for the following year but, for the backbone of the planting, I’m in it for the long haul. Perennials are better value - buy once, get years of interest. Pick something that suits the
conditions and gives you the colour you love. It’s better all round for ground cover, drought resilience, habitat creation and your wallet.

Consider more drought tolerant plants and ways to integrate rain water management into the garden. It’s not just having a water butt. There are lots of creative ways to get water from your roofs and paving to where it’s needed instead of disappearing down the drain.

When you allow ground water to replenish when it does rain, planting is more resilient when it doesn’t. However, you also need to bear in mind the soil you have as plants will likely face wetter Winters in which many Mediterranean style plants won’t tolerate in heavy ground.

Historically, gardening has been about controlling nature – creating environments that didn’t exist in soils they often weren’t suited to and the ensuing support they required to perform.
If we want more sustainable gardens - thriving with minimal intervention, we need spaces designed to cope with what the elements throw at them.

Time to start working with nature not against it.

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Are Traditional Gardens Dead? Part 1: Trees

by Hannah Phillips • 13 August 2026

Part 1: Trees. Climate change means we all need to start thinking differently about what it means to and, how, we garden. A fair share of Clients I speak to are looking for a garden that is somewhere between Chelsea ready and low maintenance’, however, the new normal (ostensibly meaning ‘anything could happen but there’s probably going to be a hosepipe ban at some point’) means achieving any garden at all is going to need some forward planning. Trees, in particular will require careful consideration. Especially the trees we choose for our gardens from now on. With most hoping to live at least 50 years, the right ones in the right place, 100’s, they will bear witness to everything Climate Change brings over the decades to come. They are also some of the most important flora in terms of supporting both people (think shade, cooling, maybe, oxygen?!) and wildlife. I went to Ely earlier this week for Barcham Trees ‘Our Urban Forest Future’ event. As a primarily residential designer based in rural Northamptonshire I do get to design a few urban gardens (and I do love the challenge of designing a small space and they are some of my favourites to work on!) but, they’re not something I do everyday. So, why go to an urban tree focused event? Well, consider the conditions your average urban tree has to contend with: Often limited soil and planting space, soil compaction, erosion. Warmer temperatures and microclimates due to the urban heat island effect and limited water and nutrients. (As well as pollution, potential vandalism etc). As Climate Change bites, these sound remarkably similar to the stresses that a lot of planting will experience in one form or another. Certainly the trees in your average garden might be in for a shock as temperatures rise and the convenience of watering gardens with drinking water is seen for insanity that it really is and the feast or famine effects of extreme weather affects soil structure and stability. The insights provided came from a wide range of schemes - large scale tree planting in the Middle East, tree audits from across the American North West parks to the current challenges facing the Royal Parks Treescape teams. Perhaps the biggest face-palm moment of the day for me was that in the USA, Native American Tribes Partners are being consulted to help in the management of areas of national woodland (presumably, that their ancestors had acted as custodians of for millennia, prior before being removed to create 'National Parks'?) as the approaches typically used in modern forestry management are not working to mitigate the now, increased, risk of wildfires. (Finally. Waking up to the idea that working with nature instead of against it is a good idea)... Another take away that can be applied to planting at any scale was resilience in diversity. The example of one of the Royal Parks which has had a heavy historical reliance on London Plane trees (Platanus hispanica - as does much of London) and the emergence of a hitherto, unknown, pathogen attacking it. This is another by-product of a changing climate and in this instance, has led to the removal of a large number of mature trees, fundamentally changing the character, canopy cover and associated ecosystem of the space. There are other species that have been and will be impacted by the influx of previously unseen pests and diseases brought about by the changing conditions with their effects rendering trees even more susceptible to less hospitable climate conditions. There are many other impacts that will be seen and felt amongst our trees. Phenological adjustments (how plants adjust the timing of their seasonal lifecycle in response to changing climate patterns (such as longer growing seasons) will mean that species will survive based on their ability to adapt. So, as we observe how some of our own garden favourites over the next few years and, when some of them inevitably fail, choosing their replacements from a range of trees better suited will be critical in helping to maintain ecosystems and all the other benefits they provide that we tend to take for granted.