Find out what the garden and propagation teams have been up to this week.
Weekly catch up with gardens & propagation
POSTED 8th May 2025
Propagation Team
Papaver dubium lecoquii 'Albiflorum', potted, rooted and flowering within 10 days! That's how we're starting the update this week, it's like a mic drop, but before the song begins. This beautiful, blushing pink annual is known as 'Beth's Poppy' down at Great Dixter, but we are unsure of its origin. What we are sure of is, in a well drained spot with plenty of sun, this is a gorgeous addition to the garden.
Elsewhere, Rob peeped through some Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', the towering feather reed-grass, and was delighted to see such strong roots. During the autumn as this clump forming perennial bleaches to a straw colour, true magic is found, and they continue to stand proudly through the winter, gifting needed height to your borders during the colder, damper months.
Sean has been a stock bed rock star, wielding his strimmer like Hendrix held his Stratocaster, though admittedly it was a different sort of shredding going on. Keeping our stock beds well maintained ensures our plants stay vigorous with plenty of space and light. This specific area of the beds are also open for visitors of the garden to walk through, where you can get a closer view of this side of propagation.
Emily and Debs have been enjoying a cuttings extravaganza! So keep an eye out in the future for such treasures as: Lonicera etrusca 'Michael Rosse', Aster amellus 'Veilchenkönigin', and Caryopteris × clandonensis 'Longwood Blue' coming your way!
Sagina subulata var. glabrata 'Aurea', another plant Emily has propagated during the last week. It works perfectly in a variety of places as long as the soil is light and well drained, but perhaps, this vivid, moss-like, mat forming evergreen is greatest between paving slabs or in a rock garden. When the miniature white stars of flower burst in the summer this sagina finds even superior charm.
Garden Team
The weather has been cooler this week but we still are looking out for some rain as it’s been such a dry month. Despite the lack of rain the garden is looking beautiful, especially the wood where spring flowering shrubs and perennials such as deutzia, lunaria, tellima and melica are weaving a tapestry of colours under the tree canopy. We have Marlene interning with us for two weeks from Germany, a landscape architect who is spending time learning how we work.
This week we have finished working through the Gravel Garden after 3 weeks of thorough weeding and editing self seeders. The final job before we moved on was to plant out Agave americana. These plants are tender so are stored in the polytunnel over winter and then planted out when the weather warms. They add a dramatic accent to borders throughout the Gravel Garden, drawing your eye through softer planting. We take care to wear eye protection as the leaves are incredibly sharp. We chose prime spots in the borders, scraped back the gravel back, planted the root ball and firmed in. They have now found their home for the next 6 months!
The next stop for the team was the Water Garden. We began working through the borders methodically topull up cleavers, which rapidly grows at this time of year, before it sets seed. It’s a good time to weed before the perennials have put on too much growth and access is more difficult. In one of the large shade beds we reduced a large area of Succisella inflexa. This flowers late summer on tall branches with lovely rounded blue blooms - a great plant for pollinators. It had put on a lot of growth and needed to be reduced to give other plants space to grow. This was the same for the Gunnera manicata which had crept forwards in another border. A bit more of a challenge to dig up and move to the back of the border, but we managed it! Teamwork makes the dream work!!
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