The High Garden at Great Dixter
I’ve been a student at Great Dixter for 3 weeks now. It’s kind of like going to gardening summer camp – we’re in the middle of nowhere, our internet access is questionable (hence the poor blogging), accommodations are dated, and we spend most of our time together, whether working or going on garden expeditions or group grocery shopping excursions. The outside world seems far away and I don’t bother reading the news anymore – just gardening books. Perhaps the greatest part has been meeting other young people who are equally, if not more so, obsessed with gardening and plants. It’s a revelation.
An avenue of yew at Sissinghurst
In the past week or so we’ve gotten toured around Sissinghurst, Elizabeth Strangman’s garden (renowned for her hellebore breeding), Nymans and Gravetye Manor. It’s been a fantastic opportunity to see gardens of different scales and learn from gardeners who have been at it for years and years. Even comparing tool sheds has been fascinating.
As to what we’re doing in the garden these days… well today it was raining so we potted up hundreds of seedlings and lined them out in the cold frames (while singing Mary Poppins). In the past week I have also weeded the paving stones and under hedges, potted up divisions of perennials from the stock beds for the nursery and for the garden, cleaned up and dug over large portions of stock beds (including lifting perennials and dividing them), planted new areas of the stock bed, and cut back grasses, ferns and various perennials. We also split and stripped wood for a new support for an espaliered pear using traditional methods (I say we but I mostly just watched). The list of gardening chores is endless, I’ve discovered. And if nothing else, one can always sweep the paths.
My current favourite plant in the garden (after the hellebores and snowdrops) is Chrysoplenium macrophyllum, which is a beautiful, bergenia-like ground cover, that I will have to get a good picture of. It’s at the back of the border so I need to use something other than my phone!
Sissinghurst. Classic.
The back of Great Dixter as the sun rises
Teasel in the Peacock Garden at Dixter
Hellebores from Elizabeth Strangman
Snowdrops in the Peacock Garden
Gravetye Manor (originally William Robinson’s garden and now a hotel)
