By Jodie Jones
This week at Great Dixter the recent heatwave had rather taken its toll and the Solar Bed, which has been a technicolour tour de force, was in need of a refresh. So we began the day brainstorming new schemes to carry it through to the end of the season.
The final plan (sketched by Fergus on a piece of board) is a total cracker – ‘Gwyneth’ and ‘Kilburn Glow’ dahlias, Salvia ‘Pink Pong’, ‘Nemagon’ marigolds, Cosmos ‘Purity’, Arundo donax var. versicolour, Amaranthus ‘Coral Fountain’, Canna ‘Annei’ and a dash of Monarda citriodora. Look it up and be amazed!
Then I went off with Andrew to the Sunk Garden to collect seed from pots of fading Gypsophila ‘Covent Garden White’ and Campanula patula and field questions about plant names and complements about the garden.
Having harvested all the ripe seed, we strewed the rest of the gypsophila along the Kitchen Drive and under the hedges near the ticket kiosk and coach park. Then we emptied the top foot of compost out of each pot, lugging the spoil past visitors so intent on taking photographs that it’s a wonder they didn’t end up in the pond, and then it was lunchtime.
There was interesting conversation with urban ecologist Richard Scott and his team, visiting from the National Wildflower Centre, and properly Turkish Turkish delight courtesy of the scholars, newly returned from a botanising trip.
The swifts were also back, swooping across the Topiary Lawn and hurtling into their nest boxes under the house eaves. It was wonderful to watch, and a particular delight for Coralie Thomas who has just created the RHS Swift Garden with Lilly Gomm at Hampton Court Flower Show.
Then Andrew and I harnessed our sugar rush to knock up a batch of Old Soil Mix to the house recipe, which includes two barrows of bark, seventy shovels of old soil and a combination of fertilisers, repeatedly tossed and turned until the whole heap is thoroughly mixed.
This took a while, and then we had to take a detour to admire the new Solar display, so there was only just time to top the pots with fresh compost and tidy up before the day ended. Someone else will get the fun of planting them up.
Leave a comment