Grasslands Garden

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Wander through wild landscapes featuring spectacular plants from North American prairie and South African grasslands.

The Grasslands Garden celebrates critically threatened wild landscapes. It has species flowering across the summer months, from pasqueflower to prairie dock and goldenrods to wild gladiolus.

Olympic Park designer James Hitchmough devised the naturalistic planting scheme, which complements the World Gallery.

His research explores how wild landscapes can inform urban green space design, to create stunning wild flower displays that are also sustainable and support local wildlife.

The Grasslands Garden in bloom
Grasslands Garden blooming
The sun sets over the grasslands garden
Autumn sunsets in the Grasslands Garden
pink and yellow coneflowers
Yellow and pink cone flowers
A summer day in the Grasslands Garden
The Grasslands Garden coming into flower
The tops of grasses in summer
Sun shining through the grasses which edge the Garden
A board reading Grasslands Garden, in the Grasslands Garden
Learn all about people and prairies
Different grasses and seedheads in autumn
Autumn colours in the Grasslands Garden coming through - green, pink, yellow, red and brown
A wispy seedhead
Seed heads in the Grasslands Garden

Roughly 95% of the North American and 40% of the South African species for the display were produced in-house.

Hitchmough’s bespoke design for the Horniman covers a 400 sq m rectangular area, with the North American prairie wrapping around a central South African grassland area.

Plants are arranged informally, with species of different heights creating an undulating, naturalist appearance, and two paths offer visitors greater immersion in the landscape.

Prairies and grasslands are amazing visually, as well as supporting nature – they’re really one of the great plant communities of the world.
James Hitchmough