By Jodie Jones
This week at Great Dixter, the morning was murky but spirits were bright as we took a quick tour of the garden (so quick that I didn’t get many pictures, I’m afraid). The river of Merlot tulips running in a broad sweep across the High Garden looked particularly good and, on a different scale, so did a trough of Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha by the Ivy Shed.
In another seasonal moment that I always look forward to, the delicate Prunus tenella in the Barn Garden was at its pinkest and prettiest. But my day was spent preparing for later, louder months, when canna and dahlia displays will dominate the picture.
These have always been overwintered in the house cellar but last year, for various reasons, a new home had to be found for them. In the end, the umpteen dozen old fish boxes filled with tubers, rhizomes and dry soil mix were stored in the Hovel, with blankets of bracken and hessian to protect them from the worst of the weather.
This was not entirely successful. The Hovel is an ancient open-sided structure, and some crates had been quite badly affected by winter wet. It is also very dark inside, so we had to sort through the boxes using phone torches to read the labels, before barrowed great mountains of boxes down to the Long Shed ready to be processed.
It was a wet morning, so there were rather a lot of people crammed in along the potting benches as we began to play Trash or Treasure with the crates of Canna Erebus. This had been particularly badly hit by the damp and attrition rates were high, but I think we saved enough to make a decent display.
At coffee break, a robin provided the entertainment, hopping right in amongst everyone’s boots in search of spilt breakfast oats.
And then the rain cleared so we moved to the outdoor potting benches (where there were also rather a lot of people crammed in to work, but the view was nicer) and spent the rest of the day potting up plumpcious General Eisenhower cannas.
PS The robin came back at lunchtime to have some of The Skint Gardener's sandwich.
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