In the spirit of Valentine’s Day I have just spent a very pleasant day pruning roses at home. It’s not a huge garden and, like most of us, I want to grow more plants in it than the space will sensibly allow. It’s also quite shady in the half furthest from the house and rather … Continue reading
The gardeners at West Dean are set to welcome visitors back this weekend (re-opening Sunday 1st February). Childish excitement abounds when playing the ‘can-you-spot-it game?’ as bulbs erupt from their winter quarters on the lawns. Early spring is the best time to see the emerging displays of snowdrops and crocuses which carpet the lawns here, … Continue reading
On one level early January is the nadir of the gardening year. Days are short, light levels low, temperatures chilly and everything seems deeply dormant. But look more closely and the signs are there that nature’s pulse is already strengthening. The first snowdrops, aconites and crocus are opening, bulb leaves are spearing through the soil … Continue reading
I feel as though I’m in the wrong story- more White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland (its late! its late!) than bringing December news from West Dean on time. Who says there isn’t much to do in the garden in winter. West Dean Gardens will remain open until Sunday 21st so there is still time … Continue reading
Two of our very few native evergreens, holly and ivy, are as seasonally synonymous as Christmas and pudding. For our forebears, these were plants that mysteriously denied the seeming extinction of nature during winter’s icy grip and, to this day, we retain the ancient custom of decking the house with these evergreen plants to subdue … Continue reading
Flint is one of the defining characteristics of our chalk landscape. Whether coating the fields like a dusting of pebbly ground pepper or as the principal constituent of most local vernacular architecture it is a constant geological presence. It is also evident in the flint walls that line the river banks in the Spring Garden … Continue reading
As temperatures plummet this time of the year the lights go back on in the cold frames at West Dean Gardens. It is essential to provide a minimum of frost protection for those border line hardy plants that are lined out to over-winter. Large mature plants of frost tender perennials, that have a semi-woody framework … Continue reading
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