Meadows and memories of Dixter

The first thing you see when entering Great Dixter is the Meadow, where constant change slows down a bit..... just a little bit. The past six months were spent watching what happened here.

This is the front meadow over the course of the 6 months of my time...

March First

Here are the candy colored hues of the crocuses and the narcissus blooms, only a taste of what was to come.

March Thirty First

Narcissus pseudonarcissus

April Seventh
Narcissus pseudonarcissus sleeps and Frittilaria meleagris weeps.

April Twenty First

The purple mottled foliage of Orchis mascula, or the Early-purple Orchid, a native plant to England.

May Sixth

Narcissus poeticus, one of the most beautiful of it's Genus.......

Don't you agree?!This is always the last Narcissus species to bloom.

Hoop petticoat, Narcissus bulbocodium, in a small clump near the walk.

May Twelfth

The meadows are awash in blue with all three Camassia species, C. quamash, C. cusickii, and C. leichtlinii, in bloom now competing mostly with the bright yellow flowers of Ranunculus auricomis.

An American native, Camassia quamash in the meadow.
May Twenty-first

The meadows are still predominately blue and yellow in color with touches of pink. This is due to the 3 Camassia species, Ranunculus auricomis and the lovely orchid, Orchis morio. The beautiful bloom of Orchis morio, the Green-winged orchid, one of the other native orchids of England.The arching head of dock, Rumex acetosa Cammassia quamash, Ranunculus auricomis and Red Clover, Trifolium pratense, make a colorful combination. The meadows are always teeming with insects and life.
June Third

This is the most diverse I have seen the meadow in colors and plants yet. There are yellows (Ranunculus auricomus & Rhinanthus minor 'Hay Strewing'), whites of the ox-eye daisies, , pink, and fuschia/magenta flowers of the orchids, and the tans, browns and oatmeal (is this a real color!?) colors of the grass seedheads, which sway with every passing breeze.

Ox-eye daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare, and Dactylorhiza fuschii, or the Common spotted-orchid in the background. Rhinanthus minor 'Hay Strewing' is my favorite plant in the whole meadow. This plant parasitizes the grasses in the meadow, slowing down their vigor so that other plants can establish themselves . Without this plant, the competition of the grasses might prove too much and choke out the other plants in the meadow. This native to England, has the common name Hay Rattle due to the noise it makes when the wind shakes the pods that hold the seed.
June Ninth

You can notice the meadow slightly starting to go over now.

June Sixteenth
The colors of the meadow seem to have softened a bit. There are the soft purple of the orchid blooms, enhanced by the white petals of the ox-eye daisy set off of just so by the small yellow blooms of Ranunculus auricomis, otherwise known as the meadow buttercup.
June Twenty-third
The dominant color of the meadow now happens to be browns, tans and the many shades between due to all of the grasses that hold their seedheads high.
The lovely disc-like seed pods of Rumex acetosa take on a colorful transparency.

July Seventh

The meadow is full of ripening seed by this point and takes on subtle tones and hues. The purple gray haze is the bloom of Agrostis tenuis, which gives the meadow a soft peaceful feel, against the bright green of the yew hedges.
July Thirty-first
As the meadow continues to go dormant, it displays the many brown and tan shades of another season that will soon come to an end........

August Eleventh

The meadow has started to get cut here. The cuttings then go to other gardens that would like to create a meadow where it is laid on the appropriate area, in hopes of the seed falling into the ground to establish themselves. And here it is freshly cut.

August Nineteenth

Within a few days, the plants were already recovering from being mowed.
September First
The meadow is fully green again and is waiting for the fall crocus to emerge. It was fascinating to see how quickly the meadow changed over the course of time and helped give me a better understanding of how plant communities can work together.


So while watching the meadows at Dixter, I felt it gave me more of an intimate connection with a part of the garden, having noticed all of the subtle details and changes that could've gone unnoticed while on the way down the path towards the house. So to see these lively areas change, in color and texture and grow in height, there was a touch of sadness to see them get cut because I knew my time at Dixter had almost come full circle.
I'll never forget the beautiful house that anchors the whole place, and the changing colors of it's orange tiled roof in the everchanging English light.. Or the many combinations of colors be it as simple as the piercing orange Kniphofia blooms against the soothing blue sky......
or the stock beds with its ever changing symphony and cast of characters...
whether they were more subtle
or dramatic
they kept me watching and involved.

or to be in the exotic garden and feel like a child lost in the jungle while drooling over the many jeweled toned treasures we call flowers......

I won't ever forget..

But time doesn't stay still and the seasons march on, being reminded by the gourds on the compost pile
or the apples ripening on trees

my memories of Great Dixter will be everlasting and to my friends there, it doesn't matter if I met you once, worked with you everyday, bothered you at your computer, or lived across the hall from you...... you all made it that much more amazing and unlike anywhere else i have ever been. Thanks for adopting me into your world of garden eccentrics....... you made my 6 months there worth every second.. thank you so much!

Forest Gardening in Totnes

There was a course ( http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/courses.html#fg) that was offered at the Agroforestry Research Trust Center in Devon, England that I had been interested in for a long time and recently went to. It was geared towards teaching you what a forest garden is, and how to design, put together and maintain one. Martin Crawford was the teacher and has been following the ways of permaculture for a long time.

Martins definition of a forest garden is: a garden modelled on natural woodland, the climax vegetation of temperate climate regions, utilising plants of direct and indirect benefit to people- often edible plants. Forest gardens are long-term biologically sustainable systems for growing food and other products for a household or commercially.

These types of gardens have been around a long time, specifically being practiced in India, Africa and China. I learned that you can put together a garden with the same principles of a wild woodland, through several layers of vegetation, such as canopy trees, small trees, large and small shrubs, herbaceous perennials, climbers and vines, and ground covers and creepers. These are put together in the way that in a natural woodland can create mini-ecosystems which can take care of itself.

This was the entrance to the 2 acre forest garden, which was on site of the course, and is a 13 year old established garden. The idea is to have it be where you get the maximum output for minimum input by creating these ecosystems.

There are many types of things to harvest from a forest garden, such as the obvious-

fruit, nuts, seeds, vegetables, herbs, spices, honey

to the not so obvious- mushrooms, fuelwood, poles/canes, things to use for binding and tying, dying materials, basketry materials, and medicinal plants.

While taking the course, I realized that a good majority of the plants that were being discussed wouldn't be able to grow back home. So I took notes on all that could be used and picked up some interesting tidbits along the way.

What do you do when your bamboo starts to flower? We know that when they flower, that's it, they will shortly die soon after.... Well, the seeds are edible and are good in salads, and a bamboo cane is best cut after it has had the chance to mature for 3 years because then it will be completely lignified and ready for use elsewhere in the garden. But if you cannot wait, when a bamboo shoot is just starting to push itself out of the ground, they are very tender and are edible and good in salads or stir fries at this stage.

Here is the bamboo seed up close.

Then there is the soapberry plant, Shepherdia canadensis, which you can use to make candles from. Below is what it looks like.

Phormiums get huge here, unlike at home, and are a great textile plant. The fibers in the leaves are very strong and can be used to tie things together or stake some plants.
Just cut the leaf at the base and tear the leaf length wise and it is surprisingly sturdy and strong.

Another idea, which was a theory that i had been wondering myself after studying the meadows at Great Dixter, was that nitrogen fixing trees were planted throughout the forest garden. Alders, which are fast growing, are nitrogen fixers and help get other plants established and growing better. I first noticed this in the meadows at Dixter where a legume was growing in the meadow, another nitrogen fixer, and it seemed the other plants growing right next to it were taller and blooming a bit longer than the others of it's kind. I am eager to try this when planting up a garden in the future. This type of planting could benefit plants that could always use that extra boost......

One idea we have all heard of is that planting things on a south facing wall can be very beneficial for some plants, due to the radiant heat it absorbs during the day and then releases at night. A theory one step further, in a way, is that Martin has planted an apple tree which is being espaliered, which you can see attached to the wires. The theory here is that the hedge behind acts as a South facing wall and gives off heat that it has absorbed during the day benefiting the apple at night. Obviously not as good as a south facing wall but better than nothing right?
Here is an apple tree that has about 7 different cultivars of apple grafted onto one rootstock. This idea excited me because this is a great solution for a small urban garden, where space is usually an issue. The thing that I wonder is you have to be careful with the different types of apples you choose because of early types, late types and the fruit size as well. Would all of these grafts eventually exhaust the rootstock too?
While I really enjoyed the course and found the information useful, I would definitely change it a bit to suit my taste and uses. I do look forward to trying an area in whatever garden I have in the future....

Art and inspiration

The other week I got to go with Fergus to a lecture he was giving on Great Dixter. It was in a village called Sedlescombe and was attended by the ladies of the W. I. or Women's International. There were all of these ladies that gathered there in the village hall bringing all types of cakes and finger foods (all homemade and delicious!) to share. On the wall was an intricately done mural that was put together using different textile materials and sewed together to show the history of the village.
There was a plaque that read, "The contents for the panels of the embroidery are based on the book "Twenty Centuries in Sedlescombe," with help from it's author the late Mrs. Beryl Lucey. Designs for the panels were drawn by Mrs. Ann Lacey and Mrs. Katie Edworthy. The main panels were sewn by the ladies of the village, whose names were placed above their work, and the leaves were sewn by ladies of both the Women's Institutes."

The details that were captured in the embroidery were really astounding, such as the trees below. One of the many individual leaves.
A detail of the fighting that took place. It was pretty large, about 20 panels long. Needless to say, they helped me get back into my sketchbook. I have had apples on the brain lately. I did these apples in oil pastels, after hearing that Liz, my classmate from my PG class at Longwood, got accepted into the Fruit Culture Program at Wisley, where she will be attending for a year. Congratulations Liz! My old roommate at Longwood, Suguru, was also accepted for the same program at Wisley, concentrating on Alpine Plants. Suguru!!A view, from the pub, of the old church tower in Ewhurst. A beautiful but quaint town..
One of the many English cottages in the area. The architecture is very interesting to me here.
On the shelf in my room, with dried Narcissus 'Jetfire' and Pheasant feathers I was able to find.