GRAND DESIGNS ; Rich patrons always turn to the same posse of aristo lady designers. No wonder their gardens look so dull, says Christopher Stocks

Prince Charles is a prime example. When he bought his home Highgrove in 1980, updating the garden was one of his first priorities. Unfortunately, as he admits, at the time, "I knew nothing about the practical aspects of gar- dening." So did he get Alan Titchmarsh in? Well, no. For the initial designs and practical advice he went straight to the Marchioness of Salisbury, whose own Gold-standard gardens, first at Cranborne Manor and later at Hatfield House, are all trim topiary and tumbling roses. She, in turn, introduced him to Dame Miriam Rothschild, the white wellington- boot-wearing world authority on fleas, whose overgrown garden at Ashton Wold became a test-bed for the wild-flower-meadow mania sweeping the back gardens of Britain today. Last but not least he called in the late Rosemary Verey, perhaps the grandest Gold of them all, whose potagers drove impressionable gardeners potty and won her the patronage of Elton John.

The grandness of the Golds is, of course, part of their appeal, but it can also be a handicap: a few years ago I met one of their leading lights on a garden visit and asked her the name of an unusual tree in her collection. She was so posh she couldn't open her mouth, and her answer went something like "Eeeuwww eyyuhm ethnk mmeuw ehmmeuwll mmmnnah," which left us pretty much back where we'd started.

Ah yes, you might say, but it's only to be expected that toffs and multimillionaires should want to deal with one of their own: what's your problem with the grandes dames of gardening? Nothing per se: they're all fine designers who deserve their success. I just think their influence hasn't always been a creative one. British gardening was once at the forefront of international innovation, but our obsession with the past, with historically correct recreations of 17th-century parterres and with cod-cottage gardens, has meant that we've drifted off into a nostalgic backwater, hobbled by snobbery and resting on laurels earned by the likes of Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West (the Golds of their day). Most of the groundbreaking ideas and designs of the past 20 years have come from abroad - from the US, France, Germany and the Netherlands - and the most imaginative gardens to be created in this country in recent years have largely been designed by foreigners: Alnwick Gardens, for example, by Jacques Wirtz (Belgian), Thames Barrier Park by Alain Provost (French), or the Princess Diana Memorial Garden by Kathryn Gustafson (American).

So does this mean that the Golds are all washed up? Is the future of British gardening less posh and less, well, British? Well, perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing. After all, at least with a foreign designer you know you'll be able to understand what they're saying.