Brilliant and Wild: A Garden from Scratch in a Year

What an amazing gardening book!! The concept is, well, BRILLIANT... and promising. Insert disclaimer here: I have not used the principles within this book but will at the earliest chance! Like many, in an effort to support declining pollinators, I planned to create a wildflower meadow in my garden. I was ready to order turf seeded with wildflowers. I am so happy I didn't as this wild garden will better suit our existing garden, give us a wider array of colourful flowers with greater longevity, height and texture diversity. I know this review is crazily random but I am very excited by this idea and the genius of it. Lucy Bellamy has created a plant puzzle that can be customised and scaled to suit any gardener's taste. The principle is simple: select an assortment of plants, create a blocked garden plan for your area, buy smaller sized/cheaper plants and grow! The idea is pure genius as is the layout of the book. We start with plant categories. The categories are divided into umbellifers, spikes, dots, flatheads, panicles, grasses and bulbs/corms/tubers. Within each category are pages of beautiful plants that are good for nature. Each page details a plant, explains why it is good (and for whom), gives details about the plant (colour, height, spacing, etc), the best species to choose and lists the other plants it goes well with (both flowers and grasses). You pick 7+/- plants you like best, mixing between the categories and picking different heights, then work on the plan. Lucy's got loads of templates and example plans that mix and match the categories and gives lots of planting guidance. This book is a gem for experienced gardeners and novices alike. Picking plants will be the hardest part for me as I love them all. I made a list of the plants I liked best and my list goes well beyond 7. I decided to give a tick to each 'works well with' plant that matched a plant from my list. Those with the most ticks are my plants. I'm pleased with the selection and now am off to work on my plan. I cannot wait to go shopping and get planting. Thank you, Lucy, for your terrific system!

When I read of the recent publication of Brilliant and Wild I did not hesitate to order a copy as it seemed to resonate with my interest in the wildlife-friendly new perennial movement. The author, former primary school teacher Lucy Bellamy, trained at the Chelsea Physic Garden and with the RHS and worked as a freelance garden journalist writing for The Guardian, The Times and Modern Garden amongst others before becoming the editor of Gardens Illustrated magazine in March 2017. The back cover of the book makes a bold and compelling claim. “From back-of-an-envelope plan to flower-filled paradise - Brilliant and Wild: A Garden from Scratch in a Year gives even the most inexperienced gardener the chance to create a beautiful and wildlife-friendly space - from nothing - in just twelve months.” With this in mind I dived straight into the book and was immediately impressed with its clear layout, generously supplemented with beautiful photographs by James Ingram. The introduction is poetic in the way that it paints an image in the reader's mind of the garden that awaits them if they follow the philosophy and guidance set out within the pages of the book. “A brilliant and wild garden is never still. It trumpets a fanfare for every season and celebrates every kind of weather. Shoots shoot, blooms burst, seeds embellish, frost gilds.” Lucy devotes almost half of the book to describing the plants from which to create your Brilliant and Wild garden. The plants are grouped by inflorescence type, umbellifers, spikes, dots, flatheads, panicles and grasses, with a separate section devoted to bulbs, corms and tubers. The description for each plant includes why you should grow it, its size, wildlife benefits and what goes well with it. There are also recommendations as to the best species or cultivars to look out for. After celebrating the beauty of winter seed heads Lucy turns to the design and selection of plants that work well together. Using between four and seven plants, there are five simple planting plans that demonstrate how to weave the plants together and to serve as inspiration and information for the reader. Lucy then moves on to the practicalities of calculating how many plants you will need and to sourcing them before getting down to the business of planting your own Brilliant and Wild garden. Once planted, the book then looks at the wealth of insects and birds that you can expect to attract and the role they play in the ecology of your new garden as well as maintenance and some helpful hints and tips should things not go quite as planned. Finally the book includes a handy calendar showing when the plants described flower and display their seed heads as well as a resources section listing nurseries and suggestions for a couple of gardens to visit. Will I plant a Brilliant and Wild garden? Probably not in the way Lucy describes in her book, for one thing, there is no way that I could restrict my planting to a just handful of reliable perennials! I do however see myself using her ideas to introduce more elements of perennial planting into my own garden. This book is aimed at the inexperienced, time-poor gardener who wants the garden to work for them and not the other way around, but equally, seasoned gardeners can be encouraged to look afresh at their relationship with their own gardens. It is a book that is full of promise and will I believe encourage readers of all ages, especially those who are new to gardening, to have a go at creating their own Brilliant and Wild garden.

I was interested in this because of the plants chosen by Lucy. I liked her choice of plants from a visual and design point of view and will find them useful in my own garden design. The other aspects of the book aren't so important to me.

Having moved into a new house with a large garden and needing some gentle inspiration and some strong encouragement, this book sounded ideal, and I still think it is having sat down to read it. The book is just lovely- the pictures are beautiful in themselves, the text genuinely inspiring and informative without being too technical, and having bought other gardening books, this one actually makes it seem so doable! Ii love the thought of a garden that will take care of itself, will look amazing in a years time and that I can start when I get around to it. I also love all the ideas for encouraging more of the natural world into your garden. I actually think I really am going to use this book to create my brilliantly wild garden in a year!!

A very inspiring guide to making a colourful garden from scratch, whatever the size of your plot. Enthusiastic without being over-ambitious. Lovely photos of a limited range of plants that will work together. This is a great book for the beginner. Clear and encouraging guidelines and simple principles for planting schemes. I have a lot of gardening books, most of them staying on the shelves. This has been my favourite guide to planning and planting, not just dreaming about changing my garden but actually getting on and doing it. I highly recommend this book.

As a novice gardener, this is the most inspiring and beautiful book on gardening I have bought. Informative and beautifully illustrated. ...Can't wait to get started on Autumn planting.

This is a beautifully thoughtful book with ways to create a very magical garden right out your door for butterflies, bees and a lovely place to sit and have a cup of tea every day.

I was excited to read this book, as I very much want to start a native wildflower garden from scratch and need a lot of guidance. I appreciate the enthusiastic and encouraging tone of the book, and the very basic tips the author gives, such as which tools to buy and how to plan a garden. But I was disappointed in the book for several reasons: (1) Though this appears to be a US release, the book appears to be a UK edition that has not been modified at all, or only a little, for the North American market. This suggests to me that although this may appear to be a book about native gardening, some of the flowers and grasses described may not be available in the US or may not be native to the US. Certainly, there are quite a few I've never heard of. (2) There is little to no mention of the sun requirements of the various plants described. None of my garden is in full sun, and most of it is in shade. She seems to be assuming that readers are gardening in spaces with lots of sun, and doesn't give guidance for those of us gardening in a lot of shade. (3) I had hoped for guidance on how to plant from seed, but the book only focuses on gardening from plants. She suggests all these plants are very affordable, but I already know that it would cost me many hundreds of dollars to try to fill my space with the plants she recommends, even buying small plants at native plant sales. It seems like a big oversight not to give advice on how to garden more economically from seed. This is a beautiful book and I did enjoy parts of it, but it was lacking in these areas.

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