On 2014-06-24 15:56:47 +0000, Bob Hobden said:

I don't blame the gardeners but the NT seems to have a policy of
allowing a LOT of bare earth to show and that makes a garden look mean
and grudging. Frankly, all too often you can tell the number crunchers
call the shots. In the white garden, in one area, a dozen Cosmos were
trying to do the work of 3 dozen. I saw two plants I'd like to get, a
Euphorbia cornigera (sp?) and a lovely, very old climbing rose on the
wall of the library entrance. It's immediately on your left as you walk
through that arch, past the steps up to her writing 'tower'. It has no
label so I doibt they know what it is, though someone said she'd try to
find out for me.

At Great Dixter, the place just bounces with exuberance and joy. I
really have never seen a garden like it. We all know the received
wisdom of planting loads of one thing in groups or drifts but there,
nobody takes the slightest notice of such 'rules'. A solitary Verbascum
would normally look forlorn but because it's surrounded by loads of
plants and its friends pop up here and there nearby, it's never in
'sore thumb' isolation. There isn't an inch of earth to be seen where
planting is complete and where it wasn't, we encountered Fergus Garrett
and assistants planting Francoa, so he and Ray had a brief discussion
about those! The garden is managed with a light hand but never
over-managed and certainly not manicured. The quantities of meadow
garden are a wonderful counterpoint to the cultivated areas. For the
first time we saw Amicia zygomeris in a garden other than our own and
as you so rightly say, loads of things we grow at home. Tremendous!


--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon