In recent years, as our planet warms inexorably, many of us have been looking for ways to adapt our gardens gradually to a new era. The Antipodean garden is one answer for gardeners, encouraging a turn towards the remarkable potential of plants from extreme climates, such as southern plants.
Let’s see how to use certain succulent plants formerly thought suitable only for southern regions, and integrate them into different garden types, from dry rockeries to Mexican-style settings.
Origin of the Antipodean garden
Last year, one of the stands at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show surprised many: right in central London, this temporary garden staged a landscape straight out of the South African bush. The Karoo Succulent Garden, conceived by landscape designer Katie Lewis and botanist Ernst van Jaarsveld, offered a sublime scene of exceptional succulents, remarkable spiny shrubby plants, Aloes, collections of Haworthia and Gasteria amid mineral chaos… A genuine plea and reflection on the garden of the future, this Antipodean garden showcased only plants native to South Africa, resilient, capable of surviving severe droughts and adapted to the region’s grand yet arid and hostile Karoo environment.
Top right, Sarcocolon crassicaule grows in the Little Karoo
On a dry rockery by the sea
Our coasts, from the Channel to the Atlantic and of course the Mediterranean, offer an ideal climate for these plants from the Cape. Take inspiration from the sublime jardin d'Èze near Nice. Many plants from Mexico are grown there, but also South African plants such as Aloes and various types of euphorbias.
For example, you can group in very warm exposure, without them complaining, Cape-origin plants such as Aloe ferox, Delosperma cooperi and an Euphorbia caerulescens. Aloe remains very architectural even after flowering, its orange flower spikes enhancing the garden in winter and spring. The spreading Delosperma will flower mauve continuously all summer. The euphorbia brings a lovely green, succulent touch to a rockery. Add other perennials that tolerate strong light, very free-draining soil and have sufficient hardiness in this coastal context: Euryops pectinatus or Euryops evansii, Protea, trailing Plumbago, for a blue, unexpected late-summer display, etc.
In a Mediterranean garden or a dry garden without watering
The dry garden, arguably one of the gardens of the future, is precisely the type suited to these South African plants that grow locally in poor, arid soils. Inviting these Antipodean plants into our gardens in the Mediterranean or in regions with mild winters is a great way to refresh the plant palette of gardens designed without watering.
Ramified shrubs such as the Tylecodon wallichii, a superb plant related to crassulas, which eventually forms a small trunk bearing leaves clustered at the top, a South African heather, Erica arborea, or the Cape heather Phylica ericoides make perfect companions in this Mediterranean yet wild setting. A very striking aloe with a dragon-like appearance, Aloe dichotoma (quiver tree), will make a sensation once its trunk has developed. All these plants appreciate a perfectly free-draining, poor and light substrate. Better-known plants such as Sansevieria (snake plant), also native to South Africa, can be grown in pots to bring their incomparable architectural form.
Flowering of the various South African shrubs and undershrubs, southern‑hemisphere timing aside, tends to occur in winter or spring. So add a few summer-interest plants to bring colourful touches to this unusual world, such as diascias (annual or perennial) and the shrubby Cape mallow (Anisodontea capensis) which can flower until frosts and will require, unlike the other plants, a little watering while it establishes.
In a sheltered patio, like in Mexico, or on a sunny balcony!
Although unaffected by scorching sun, succulent plants and other South African natives lack hardiness in our hemisphere. They must therefore be potted in some regions where they might suffer, especially from winter damp.
So why not evoke a South American patio to dream of distant horizons from a sheltered, very sunny patio, courtyard or terrace? Then simply bring them indoors to a warm living room for winter months.
Think again of easy-care plants, provided their low watering needs and a warm exposure are respected. Here we plant in attractive glazed pots a Senecio serpens 'Blue Chalk', or 'Dwarf Blue', a Haworthia fasciata 'Big Band', also called zebra plant, delightful for its ultra-compact habit and characteristic stripes on its fleshy foliage.
Consider bright paints applied to walls or to pots, such as orange, terracotta, turquoise and green to accompany your plants in this decidedly colourful patio and reinforce the South American vibe. The plants mentioned can just as easily be placed on a small south- or west-facing balcony in town, provided you remember to overwinter them at home from late autumn to spring.
Discover our selection of succulents on our "Jardin des antipodes" page online, and our inspiration in the trendbook 2026!
Southern atmospheres are popular: we have covered this theme in several articles: Alexandra talks about her botanical trip to South Africa, our advice on planting and growing southern plants, and our inspiration sequence Exotisme austral.
To keep up with the trends for 2026, also check our topic Garden: what are the five major trends for 2026?
In recent years, as our planet warms inexorably, many of us have been looking for ways to adapt our gardens gradually to a new era. The Antipodean garden is one answer for gardeners, encouraging a turn towards the remarkable potential of plants from extreme climates, such as southern plants.Let’s see how to use certain succulent […]
Here’s a distinctive trend emerging in outdoor spaces, and not only among landscapers fond of conceptual gardens or in coastal areas! While a sand garden is particularly suited to coastal gardens, it proves to be an undemanding, on-trend garden, halfway between a gravel garden and a dry garden, perfectly in tune with current climate upheavals.
We invite you to discover it in three scenes that demonstrate its aesthetic appeal and sunny atmosphere!
Sand garden: a landscaping trend between frugality and aesthetics
Far from the image of the traditional Japanese zen garden with raked gravel or pale sand, the sand garden imposes itself as a new version of the garden. It retains a sense of serenity but transposes it into a warmer register, where maintenance and watering are reduced to an absolute minimum. It answers a need created by climate change: how to introduce more Mediterranean plants into northern regions? Even if rising temperatures allow it, the problem of waterlogged winter soils, often fatal to these plants, remains. The sand garden is one solution, providing effective drainage.
It is a functional garden, still experimental globally, which showcases plants that ripple in the wind, like a reminder of a sea that is not always present. It also emphasises contrasting materials and textures, often using Corten steel as a support, woven willow in tontines or sculptures, large stones or retaining walls.
Undemanding plants grow in a substrate made up of a thick layer of sand. They therefore need to draw water from deep down to survive. For this reason we choose the most drought-tolerant plants and xerophilous plants, those whose taproot systems mean they will withstand heatwave summers.
We also seek to enhance the golden aspect of the sand using a palette of warm tones available to us, both in plants and materials. Plants will generally be low-growing, mat-forming or supple, also incorporating some greyed foliage to reinforce the impression of warmth.
A holiday feel
Coastal gardens, and especially those located right on the coastline, are difficult to plant because of the omnipresence of sand on site. They are perfectly suited to the constraints of a sand garden. In a beach-return spirit, the focus is fully on the sand-and-beach duo, taking inspiration from the dune ecosystem.
Essential plants: valerian, Lagurus ovatus and oyat (Ammophila arenaria), Armeria maritima 'Vesuvius' (sea thrift), sandwort, Erigeron glaucus 'Sea Breeze' or Erigeron karvinskanius, sand carnations, Perovskia, blue fescue, sea holly (Eryngium maritimum), milk thistle, etc.
To bring back vegetal blond tones, use wooden slats as decking, mini sand fences, and pair with coppery accents such as a brazier, useful for summer evenings.
Our tip: take care not to multiply beach clichés. Restrict decoration to sand alone, without superfluous additions of pebbles, shells or other seaside trimmings to avoid caricature. Plants create the scene, not the other way round!
Contemporary sand garden
At the opposite end from the dune garden that naturally links to its environment, the idea of undemanding plants and sand also evokes minimalism and the mineral feel of modernist gardens. The sobriety of the sand, combined with an appropriate plant palette, allows creation of a sand garden that suggests a coast not necessarily nearby, in perfect harmony with contemporary architecture.
Here, colour is conceived in monochrome, or in white/black, white/mauve or purple and green duos, to name a few pertinent combinations. Plants are chosen for their prostrate habit, their original textures or the shapes of their inflorescences. Greyed tones for foliage are also favoured to blend well with often anthracite outdoor furniture. Corten steel, used for boards or attractive windbreaks, stands out as a material that enhances the sand’s sheen, as does brick, which can serve as a path.
Essential plants: silver santolina, Artemisia 'Powis Castle', Ballota pseudodictamnus, medium to tall grasses such as coppery Carex (Carex testacea), the movement of Hordeum jubatum, graphic silhouettes (Cordylines, Yuccas) on flat ground, and low to medium plants as on a shaped sand mound (sea thrift, creeping gypsophila, wild thyme, etc.).
South African atmosphere
One attractive idea with the sand garden is to travel to an arid, heat-baked world. You can plant stunning perennials and ultra-resilient grasses and lean towards a Californian vibe, or, as here, a South African feel.
Let’s take inspiration from Léon Kluge’s work, the world-renowned South African landscaper, at Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire in France: few plants for a spectacular effect in this full-sun garden. The scene draws from the African bush, where red sand and oversized stylised baobab sculptures mainly make up the decor, with waves of Stipa tenuifolia and torch lilies. At home, imagine tall red-willow tontines or large woven willow spheres to add volume and blend into this atmosphere.
Key plants: succulents and light grasses (Aloes, Euphorbia myrsinites, Stipas, Sesleria argentea, Lomandra longifolia), and perennials with sunny yellow to orange blooms (Kniphofias, Euryops pectinatus, bulbines, Leonotis leonurus, gazanias…). Plants native to South Africa, Patagonia or Tasmania are favoured, some tolerating down to -8°C in sheltered conditions.
The naturalistic garden and the English garden also draw on this avant-garde technique, and we could just as well have developed scenes in these two worlds, which lend themselves to experimentation currently being carried out notably across the Channel.
Find our selection of plants suited to the Sand Garden spirit on our online nursery as well as on our inspiration page in the 2026 Trend Book !
Do you enjoy these distinctive atmospheres? Discover other inspiring scenes in related worlds:
Here’s a distinctive trend emerging in outdoor spaces, and not only among landscapers fond of conceptual gardens or in coastal areas! While a sand garden is particularly suited to coastal gardens, it proves to be an undemanding, on-trend garden, halfway between a gravel garden and a dry garden, perfectly in tune with current climate upheavals.We […]
