Deep down diamonds

No other plants set my spirits soaring as much as the early dwarf bulbs that pluckily push their delicate blooms above ground just as the winter weather reaches its peak of ferocity. West Dean’s tried and tested troika that can be relied on to perform year in year out are Galanthus nivalis, the snowdrop, Eranthis hyemalis, the winter aconite and Crocus tomassinianus. Over the years we have naturalised thousands of these through our wildflower meadows and they are now beginning to make a real impact. One of the great bonuses of this triumvirate is that they are very generous self seeders, particularly the aconite and crocus, and from an initial thin planting will soon spread themselves over an area to create quite dense pools of colour that, especially when caught by the low winter sun, can electrify an otherwise dull corner. However if you insist on slicing their heads off as soon as they have flowered this will both starve the actual bulb itself and also prevent them sprinkling their seedy stardust. So relax and resist the siren call of the mower until the magic is woven.

In a similar but subtly different fashion , Cyclamen coum is another foolproof performer with the major difference being that it will start blooming well before the winter solstice and still be going when the other three have given up the flowering ghost. Its leaves, while not as attractively marked as Cyclamen neapolitanum, are still very attractive with their distinctive purple undersides. Although it will naturalise in grass and seed itself around it is less easy to manage in that position because of its habit of leafing up by late autumn and only going dormant in late spring.  Because you are still cutting grass during at least some of that period there is a conflict between managing the grass and decapitating the cyclamen. For that reason we tend to grow it in pockets at the edge of beds.

    

Brown Gold

Being on the dip slope of the South Downs our soil is a light, free draining, gravelly loam overlying about a mile of chalk! As a consequence we are very keen on the addition of as much organic matter as possible. This is beneficial in terms of soil structure, drainage, moisture retention and nutrition, in fact it’s the bees knees! Each year we put 3” of well rotted cow manure over one quarter of the kitchen garden area (normally the quarter that is going to be occupied by the potatoes in the coming season) so that over a four year rotation the whole site is covered. This is trenched in over-winter and then the soil is knocked down in the spring, prior to planting. Under this regime I reckon the soil level has risen by a good 2” within the walled garden over the last fifteen years, so by 2100 we’ll need ladders to mount the beds!

Rows of roses

Still within the walled garden but backing the flower borders in the walled garden are two sets of intersecting climber supports. These provide a useful spatial divider within the space and offer the opportunity to grow a wide range of climbing and rambling roses plus clematis. Within the mild microclimate of the walls things start into growth even earlier than outside so Anne is hard at work pruning and re-tying before it all kicks off.