Winter at Great Dixter

Planning to grow something in your room for the colder months? Here are the Best Indoor Herbs that Can Thrive on Winter Windowsill!

One of my favorite garden gifts to eat during the cold season is winter squash.Easily stored in a root cellar or colder

Welcome to another edition of Urban Gardening News!

Autumn Glory at Great Dixter The autumn plant fair at Dixter just gets better and better – and going there on a day of cloudless blue skies and warm sun made it particularly glorious. This year there were thirty-two stands including several specialist nurseries from Europe as well as the cream of the UK crop.

Spring Plant Fair at Great Dixter I have been in horticultural heaven this week with plenty of gardening at home, the visit to Sissinghurst and a day at the Spring Fair at Great Dixter. It really is the most wonderful event – masterminded by Fergus Garrett – and I found myself thinking that had Christo been there, he would have been predictably grumpy at first, but ultimately thrilled that his protégé had devised an event so entirely in keeping with the spirit of Great Dixter.

For the second year running this fair snuck up on me, but at least this time I knew before rather than after the event.  It was an absolutely glorious hot autumnal day with many wonderful plants, bulbs and seeds for sale.  I resisted most because of the building work creating chaos in the garden – but I did succumb to a purple leaved Silk Tree Albizia ‘Summer Chocolate’ which will go in the bed which is due to be totally replanted.  

With rumours of (the probably temporary) arrival of cold weather, I decided that it was time to tuck up my evergreen agapanthus – Agapanthus africanus. The weather has been so mild that any frost could do quite a lot of damage since many plants have continued growing lost past their usual season. Most will have to take their chances but the large pots of agapanthus have now had a deep mulch of Strulch www.strulch.co.uk – the wonderful mineralised straw mulch which will hold air and insulate the plants – and protected with fleece covers that will keep them cosy from now until spring. They may not be very decorative, but the pots are far too big to move undercover, and it’s better than losing the plants. The lime tree

Great Dixter Nursery There’s something immensely satisfying about visiting an iconic garden like Great Dixter and then being able to go to the nursery to buy some of the plants that have caught your eye. With its history of plantsmanship and innovation under the inspirational guidance of the late Christopher Lloyd and now Fergus Garrett, there are always exciting plants in the garden and many of them can be bought from the nursery.

Powerful Depictions of Great Dixter There’s a stunning  exhibition of artist Anny Evason’s drawings of the gardens at Great Dixter at the First Sight Gallery in Hastings Old Town. She has been doing her charcoal drawings (some with a splash of colour) at Dixter for the past four years It is the type of art that stops you in your tracks – that’s certainly the effect it has had on me and I’ve been prowling round the house trying to find a suitable spot where I could hang one of her drawings.

Well when you have one of the world’s great gardens nearby, it’s pretty irresistible. The team at Great Dixter were holding a press day, and although I know the garden very well, there are always things to learn, techniques to observe , new plants to see  and the ever-changing plantings to admire.  I will do later posts about some of the things I learnt and plants that caught my eye.   Availabl

When it comes to gardening it’s often the flowers that grab the attention and almost everyone seems to overlook the foliage. But leaves are the back room boys, the unsung heroes who do all the hard work and let some pretty blossom take all the credit. Ironically, if we gave foliage as much attention as we afford flowers our gardens would probably be a whole lot better. In winter of course, due to the absence of dazzling floral displays, we have a little more time to consider shapes and forms, colours and textures of leaves. I barely notice th

If you need a colour fix before autumn-proper kicks in, there’s no better place to go than Great Dixter – and remember that their Great Autumn Plant Fair takes place on the 1st and 2nd of October from 11am-4pm each day. As usual there will be a wonderful gathering of nurseries, all personally selected and invited by Fergus Garrett. Entrance £8.50 including the garden. .