The sun may have (thankfully) set on the British Empire but not on its most successful invention.

It is often said that a lawn makes a good foreground but German garden designer Petra Pelz has got other ideas.

A recent post by a colleague on Gardening GoneWild (Tovah Martin) about planting up her lawn with plants rather than the heavily-shorn green stuff deals with what history may yet record as one of the great shifts in garden culture. Here I would like to take a hard look at this green tyrant and alternatives to it. Read on....