The difference between meadows and perennial borders is, perhaps, a matter of scale, with the mix of plants a key to their look and feel. Perennial borders can look quite meadow-like, at least in our vision of them, while our 'front meadows' are probably more like exuberant perennial beds than true meadows, which include many grasses.
But I think the key is the mix of flowering perennials, whether they have large showy flowers or the reduced flowers of grasses; this mix determines how the border/meadow feels and looks (in the garden). A cottage garden is largely flowering perennials without grasses; a meadow includes a majority of grasses as the matrix.
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| Front 'meadow' in Asheville |
But a sparser front planting bed, in the process of becoming more complex, feels like a meadow in progress, too.
