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Sowing Beauty: Designing Flowering Meadows from Seed
“A hopeful and expansive book for the gardener who sees a field as a canvas.” — Publishers Weekly
James Hitchmough is well-regarded in the design world for his exuberant, colorful, and flower-filled meadows. His signature style can be seen in prominent places like London’s Olympic Park and the Botanic Garden at the University of Oxford. Using a distinct technique of sowing meadows from seed, he creates plant communities that mimic the dramatic beauty of natural meadows and offer a succession of blooms over many months—a technique that can be adapted to work in both large-scale public gardens and smaller residential gardens. Sowing Beauty shows you how to recreate Hitchmough’s masterful, romantic style. You'll will learn how to design and sow seed mixes that include a range of plants, both native and exotic, and how to maintain the sown spaces over time. Color photographs show not only the gorgeous finished gardens, but also all the steps along the way.
James Hitchmough is well-regarded in the design world for his exuberant, colorful, and flower-filled meadows. His signature style can be seen in prominent places like London’s Olympic Park and the Botanic Garden at the University of Oxford. Using a distinct technique of sowing meadows from seed, he creates plant communities that mimic the dramatic beauty of natural meadows and offer a succession of blooms over many months—a technique that can be adapted to work in both large-scale public gardens and smaller residential gardens. Sowing Beauty shows you how to recreate Hitchmough’s masterful, romantic style. You'll will learn how to design and sow seed mixes that include a range of plants, both native and exotic, and how to maintain the sown spaces over time. Color photographs show not only the gorgeous finished gardens, but also all the steps along the way.
364 pages, Hardcover
Published April 19, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 10, 2018
Gardening books are, more often than not, written by professional horticulturists or gardening enthusiasts. The aim is to provide practical advice or, at the very least, a beautiful volume to lay on the coffee table. This one, however, is by the hand of an academic who, incidentally, has worked for urban planning or other institutional agencies, on projects such as London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. As a result, the style of James Hitchmough’s book is slightly atypical. Firstly, it’s unclear if it is intended for professional landscapers or the regular guy tending to his lawn on weekends. Secondly, it’s a bit verbose, just as academic papers use to be.
Be it as it may, it is an excellent book on the rare topic of how to create a flowering steppe and use grasses and forbs on slopes and gardens, all from seeds only —which is much more cost-effective than putting actual plants in the ground. From climate considerations to herbaceous mix design to weeding, sowing and managing, pretty much everything is covered. The pictures (most of which are by the author) show some carefully designed meadow-like gardens that look enchanting —even better than a real wildflower prairie!
Be it as it may, it is an excellent book on the rare topic of how to create a flowering steppe and use grasses and forbs on slopes and gardens, all from seeds only —which is much more cost-effective than putting actual plants in the ground. From climate considerations to herbaceous mix design to weeding, sowing and managing, pretty much everything is covered. The pictures (most of which are by the author) show some carefully designed meadow-like gardens that look enchanting —even better than a real wildflower prairie!
December 6, 2018
Unlike too many gardening books which are just pretty pictures with forgettable text, this has detailed, practical, professional-level text along with pretty pictures. I felt a bit as though someone’s advanced degree thesis paper had snuck into a coffee table book. It was readable for the layperson though.
I learned so much. I’ll return to this book for years. The author is the maestro - he’s worked around the globe and is truly obsessed with meadows. This reveals what he’s learned from his life’s work.
I learned so much. I’ll return to this book for years. The author is the maestro - he’s worked around the globe and is truly obsessed with meadows. This reveals what he’s learned from his life’s work.
April 5, 2026
Oh how I want to plant a meadow after reading this book! So many insights and helpful perspectives. Some highlights and takeaways:
1) It is really important to understand the needs of a plant and put it in a situation where it can thrive. Natives are great and recommended, but if you put an arid full sun plant in a shady bog it will not be happy.
2) Gravel and sand are permanent mulches that don’t break down and need replacement. As an added bonus, 2+inches effectively blocks most weeds, makes it very hard for new seeds to germinate, and since it doesn’t break down into organic matter you aren’t increasing soil fertility.
3) Increased soil fertility can actually be counterproductive in establishing and m as maintaining a native meadow. One boon of native plants is they are often hardy and tolerant of poor soils. If you amend and improve your soil, you remove their competitive advantage and help the invasives.
4) Consider how your seed mix will establish and the biomass will develop over the seasons. If you have low-lying shade intolerant plants with tall canopy building plants shooting up when the low-lying ones need that light, the low-lying ones will be out-competed. A full sun meadow will need low-lying, plants with some shade tolerance.
5) Consider field emergence (how many seeds will actually germinate when scattered), dormancy and establishment time, and competition. Perennials usually needs a couple seasons to have a strong foothold, make sure they make up a large enough portion of the seed mix, otherwise some competitive annuals could take over the whole field before the slower, and usually perennial, plants even start. You can dead head aggressive seeders and prolific germinators until the soil it well matted in established stands. Large fast seeding plants should have very little presence in the seed mix (maybe 0.1-1/1m^2). Use seeds/gram, field emergence, and target seedlings per m^2 to calculate how many grams of seed you need in your mix
6) grasses tend to establish fast and spread. Focus on forbs for the first couple years and add in grass to fill once the slower establishers are there.
7) weed, weed, weed the first year. It’ll pay huge dividends in aiding establishment of your sown seed and reduce future weeding. Stop watering early summer as plants should have germinated and keeping the soil wet encourages weed germination. If you have to water do it once a week. Giving some short lived nitrogen only fertilizer if needed can help your plants build a canopy to shade out weeds.
1) It is really important to understand the needs of a plant and put it in a situation where it can thrive. Natives are great and recommended, but if you put an arid full sun plant in a shady bog it will not be happy.
2) Gravel and sand are permanent mulches that don’t break down and need replacement. As an added bonus, 2+inches effectively blocks most weeds, makes it very hard for new seeds to germinate, and since it doesn’t break down into organic matter you aren’t increasing soil fertility.
3) Increased soil fertility can actually be counterproductive in establishing and m as maintaining a native meadow. One boon of native plants is they are often hardy and tolerant of poor soils. If you amend and improve your soil, you remove their competitive advantage and help the invasives.
4) Consider how your seed mix will establish and the biomass will develop over the seasons. If you have low-lying shade intolerant plants with tall canopy building plants shooting up when the low-lying ones need that light, the low-lying ones will be out-competed. A full sun meadow will need low-lying, plants with some shade tolerance.
5) Consider field emergence (how many seeds will actually germinate when scattered), dormancy and establishment time, and competition. Perennials usually needs a couple seasons to have a strong foothold, make sure they make up a large enough portion of the seed mix, otherwise some competitive annuals could take over the whole field before the slower, and usually perennial, plants even start. You can dead head aggressive seeders and prolific germinators until the soil it well matted in established stands. Large fast seeding plants should have very little presence in the seed mix (maybe 0.1-1/1m^2). Use seeds/gram, field emergence, and target seedlings per m^2 to calculate how many grams of seed you need in your mix
6) grasses tend to establish fast and spread. Focus on forbs for the first couple years and add in grass to fill once the slower establishers are there.
7) weed, weed, weed the first year. It’ll pay huge dividends in aiding establishment of your sown seed and reduce future weeding. Stop watering early summer as plants should have germinated and keeping the soil wet encourages weed germination. If you have to water do it once a week. Giving some short lived nitrogen only fertilizer if needed can help your plants build a canopy to shade out weeds.
April 21, 2020
The beginning and end of meadow books, this book describes seeding, planting, mowing, growing seasons, compatibility, and color arrangements. A bit technical for me, and really didn't help me for my growing #4, but very informative and well written.
September 21, 2020
This book is incredibly inspirational and organized, with lots of practical advice and information on everything from germination to siting plants to mulching and design. His examples of his past projects contain detailed breakdowns of the plant species used.
March 6, 2022
Beautiful and technical
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews