Planting is a “cheap insult”

Sir, – It was a privilege and a pleasure to visit Dundee’s V&A design museum on its opening weekend and to see how much it meant to the first visitors through the doors.

The soaring architecture and the museum’s relationship to the river flowing by, glimpsed through rectangular and triangular windows was inspiring. The Ocean Liners Exhibition was a great place in which to spend time.

I look forward to returning to see the Scottish Design galleries on a quieter day.

The only real disappointment was the planting around the base of the building.

This is a design museum.

The design element should therefore include the setting, the architecture, the relationship to Dundee as well as the content of the building and the views from it.

Good planting relates to and improves the building; poor planting has the opposite effect.

What is there now is not what I would expect of a world-class design museum.

I hope this planting is a stop gap, with the intention of doing the job properly when the landscaping of the proposed garden and urban beach is completed to the east of the museum.

Evaluating what is there now, the sea holly Eryngium is already dying off (they used a variety which is normally an annual or at best a biennial), coupled with some dismal grasses (there are many better ones to choose) and large numbers of Cornus alba, a favourite for mass planting in low maintenance schemes.

It is boring and derivative.

I can’t believe that Kengo Kuma, the building’s architect, is enthused by this sort of “finishing touch”.

As it stands, this planting is a cheap insult to the V&A.

I can easily envisage a creative plant combination that would enhance the architecture and make a design statement in its own right.

Scotland is blessed with many great garden designers.

One of the best, Michael Innes, lives just outside Cupar in Fife.

Why was he or someone of equal talent not engaged?

It is not too late to fix and it would not be expensive.

Come on V&A. You did almost everything right.

Make it even more extraordinary. Kenneth Cox. Glendoick Garden Centre.