DESIGNING A SMALL DOMESTIC GARDEN FOR DROUGHT AND RAIN DOWNPOURS
Between Extremes was an award-winning show garden for the Royal Norfolk Show 2026, designed around one question: how does a small, ordinary garden cope when the weather keeps swinging between drought and downpour? The answer was to design for both, moving from a dry gravel garden into a lush rain garden.
The same thinking applies to any full garden design in Norfolk, where long dry spells and heavy rain can both turn up in the same year.
The idea
Gardens used to be designed for an average year. But what even is an average year any more? A garden might sit parched for six weeks, then take a month's rain in a weekend. Between Extremes was built to show that a small, domestic garden can be designed to handle both, using ordinary materials and plants rather than anything specialist.
The dry half
The first part of the garden is drought-tolerant gravel planting: lavender, ornamental grasses and long-flowering perennials set into a dark gravel bed beside a reclaimed brick path. Gravel keeps moisture in the soil, holds back weeds and suits plants that evolved for dry, sunny conditions. It also looks good doing it, which matters, because a garden built for resilience that nobody wants to sit in has missed the point.
The wet half
The garden then slopes gently downhill moves into a rain garden, filled with persicaria, dwarf willow, cornus, ferns, hostas and more. There plants sat in a dip designed to catch heavy rain and let it soak in slowly, rather than sheeting off paving and into the drain. Rain gardens sound more technical than they are. Mostly it's a shallow hollow, the right plants, and a bit of thought about where the water is going to go.
What it shows
Resilient design isn't a separate style. It's ordinary design decisions made with the weather in mind: where the water goes, what's planted where, which surfaces let rain through. The whole point of the garden was that all of it can be done in a normal back garden.
The result
The garden was awarded a silver medal by the judges, who commended it's thoughtful design and considered construction.
If your garden swings between baked and boggy, it's worth designing for both rather than hoping for a normal year.
DESIGNING A SMALL DOMESTIC GARDEN FOR DROUGHT AND RAIN DOWNPOURS
Between Extremes was an award-winning show garden for the Royal Norfolk Show 2026, designed around one question: how does a small, ordinary garden cope when the weather keeps swinging between drought and downpour? The answer was to design for both, moving from a dry gravel garden into a lush rain garden.
The same thinking applies to any full garden design in Norfolk, where long dry spells and heavy rain can both turn up in the same year.
The idea
Gardens used to be designed for an average year. But what even is an average year any more? A garden might sit parched for six weeks, then take a month's rain in a weekend. Between Extremes was built to show that a small, domestic garden can be designed to handle both, using ordinary materials and plants rather than anything specialist.
The dry half
The first part of the garden is drought-tolerant gravel planting: lavender, ornamental grasses and long-flowering perennials set into a dark gravel bed beside a reclaimed brick path. Gravel keeps moisture in the soil, holds back weeds and suits plants that evolved for dry, sunny conditions. It also looks good doing it, which matters, because a garden built for resilience that nobody wants to sit in has missed the point.
The wet half
The garden then slopes gently downhill moves into a rain garden, filled with persicaria, dwarf willow, cornus, ferns, hostas and more. There plants sat in a dip designed to catch heavy rain and let it soak in slowly, rather than sheeting off paving and into the drain. Rain gardens sound more technical than they are. Mostly it's a shallow hollow, the right plants, and a bit of thought about where the water is going to go.
What it shows
Resilient design isn't a separate style. It's ordinary design decisions made with the weather in mind: where the water goes, what's planted where, which surfaces let rain through. The whole point of the garden was that all of it can be done in a normal back garden.
The result
The garden was awarded a silver medal by the judges, who commended it's thoughtful design and considered construction.
If your garden swings between baked and boggy, it's worth designing for both rather than hoping for a normal year.