THE PLANT LIBRARY, SERGE HILL

This week we return to Serge Hill for a special workshop to celebrate the publication of our book Naturalistic Flowers: A Year of Plants, Places and People, which was released this spring. To avoid wastage, I’m sharing below a few outtakes from the book that didn’t make it into the final edit.

The Plant Library is a Tom Stuart-Smith garden, planted in an orchard adjacent to the oak-clad Apple House, and housing a unique collection of over 2,000 different varieties of herbaceous perennials and bulbs. Laid out in a grid system, with drought-tolerant plants at the top of the site on sand, shade-loving woodland plants at the bottom in damp clay and those that can happily tolerate both in between, it is a unique garden that serves as both an educational resource and a therapeutic space for charity projects and schools.

Refining the cut from such a choice selection of ingredients was an agonising process but these were some of my favourite arrangements from the book and I was delighted that the licorice, asters and oats made the cover. Hope you enjoy these ‘behind-the-scenes’ photos from that mellow autumn day - if you haven’t already, you can order your copy of the book below!