Having had a fairly lazy summer in the garden – my ‘to do’ list for the next few weeks is getting longer and longer…

The vegetable garden needs clearing of the almost finished runner beans, courgette and squash plants are tired and sprawling, the onions have been pulled and although this season’s tomatoes have been excellent I can see I’ll only have another week or so of cropping.  We’ve eaten the plums and pears, made jars and jars of crab-apple jelly, and now the apple trees are weighed down with fruit and I’m trying to work out how to preserve them (luckily I’ve just found a Sarah Raven recipe for Apple & Mint Compote that looks delicious, so will get cooking tomorrow).

Seeds need to be collected, and seeds need to be sown.  The flowerbeds are still colourful and abundant with big blowsy dahlias, neat little zinnias, verbena bonariensis, persicaria and many other late-flowering perennials.  So we’ll have another few weeks of fresh flowers for the house, but then they’ll have to be cleared and dahlia tubers lifted (a real palaver, but the ones I left in the ground last year did not survive, so it has to be done).

Earlier today at the Sussex Prairies Garden’s open day (rain, sun, wind, a typical approaching-autumn day!), temptation was all around.  The various specialist nurseries all had great plants for sale – it’s so worthwhile seeking out specialist nurseries in your local area, their knowledge, helpfulness and beautifully raised young plants just make buying such a pleasure (even when there really, really is no room left in your garden!).  So, even though there really, really is no room left in my garden (!), I bought three Agastache foeniculum ‘Golden Jubilee’, three stunning dark magenta Lobelia ‘tania’, a delightful Japanese Toad Lily (Tricyrtis formosana), a light mauve Physostegia virgina variegata, and some pretty white-flowered garlic chive plants (allium tuberosum) for the veg patch.

The Garden House stall caught everyone’s notice, with its display of herbs and preserves, mosaics by Sue Samways, and posters highlighting all the GH autumn workshops and courses, and the events for 2012 – including an evening talk with Fergus Garrett, a spring visit to Woolbeding Gardens at Midhurst, and a four-day trip to see Beth Chatto’s garden, the gardens at East Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk (inspiration at every turn!), and the truly wonderful Woottens of Wenhaston nursery!

Whilst at Sussex Prairies I also bought a beautiful old spade (a ladies border spade) restored to its almost original glory by Michael Ristic whose stall was a treasure-trove of pre-loved garden tools.  It feels quite unique and nothing like the garden-centre variety.  Hopefully it will also last a lot longer too (I managed to break two border forks this year!) and encourage me to get going, lifting and dividing!

And the spring bulb catalogues have arrived – another sign that autumn is definitely here.  As always the catalogues look so tempting, and it’s sensible to try and do your planning and ordering sooner rather than later.  I noticed that several of September’s garden magazines have inspirational photos of spring pots, showing varieties of narcissi and tulips mixed with various other bulbs, winter-flowering pansies and evergreens – useful if you’re feeling stuck for ideas and new combinations.

So…whilst enjoying the last of late summer, and contemplating an abundant autumn, I also find myself happily looking forward to next spring – what joy!

The Sussex Prairies Garden also happens to be one of our favourite gardens, renowned for its dramatic drifts of late summer-flowering perennials.

The Garden House will be there – ready to discuss our forthcoming (and very exciting) Christmas and 2012 courses, workshops, garden visits and talks (evening talk with Fergus Garrett at GH on 23 March 2012!).  We’ll also be selling GH-made preserves and a variety of seeds and plants.

Plant exhibitors include:

• DESIRABLE PLANTS – Specialising in herbaceous perennials, Epimedium and other woodlanders, Galanthus, Watsonia, Gladiolus, Tritonia and other South African Iridaceae, outh African Erica, Sanguisorba, Geranium, Hedychium and Roscoea. www.desirableplants.com
• SCARECROW PLANTS – Out of the ordinary plants, English Native wildflowers and plants to attract wildlife. Also hand-made local ironwork and trellis. 07939 272443
• RAPKYNS NURSERY – All grown in their traditional nursery – a unique and exciting range of quality and unusual cottage garden plants. 01825 830065

Art exhibitors include:

• ANNEMARIE O’SULLIVAN – whose passion lies in all things woven, knotted and netted, will be showing baskets and larger woven forms. www.annemarieosullivan.co.uk
• FRANCES DOHERTY  – extraordinary ceramics based on the forms of fruiting bodies, flowers and particularly seedpods. Richly glazed to complement the form and often combined with metal and reclaimed sea defence timber. www.francesdoherty.co.uk
• CHRIS BURCHELL COLLINS – A Blacksmith and Green Woodworker whose work is influenced by the wonderful forms and shapes found in nature.
• JANINE CREAYE – will be bringing many new small sculptures for gardens and interiors. Stylised and patterned wood carving, stone carving and drawings of natural forms. www.sculptureform.co.uk
• HOLLY BELL – wheel-thrown functional ceramics including jugs, tea-sets and planters. www.hollybell.co.uk

And many, many more – a great chance to source some amazing plants and artifacts for you, your house and your garden! For more information visit www.sussexprairies.co.uk

Sunday:

Our visit started with an orientation tour of central Berlin, taking in the Brandenberg Gate and Hotel Adlon (site of Michael Jackson’s notorious baby dangling), Unter den Linden, the Tiergarten, some remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall near Checkpoint Charlie with a sobering exhibition about Nazi Germany, and further on a stretch of the wall sporting bold upbeat political murals. We saw the Reichstag, now one of the most modern of government buildings, following a five-year transformation by Sir Norman Foster (1994-1999). We then retired to our delightful Heckers Hotel for a little r & r (and to the bar next door which served possibly the strongest gin and tonic on record!).

Our first meal in Berlin, at a traditional German restaurant, was made all the more memorable by the proprietor Ramona, who not only recommended the best dishes (no short cuts, the roast potatoes must be eaten!) but treated us to a rendition of God Save the Queen as she danced through the restaurant, lights dimmed, brandishing a sparkler. She had once appeared on Birds of a Feather and could recite her lines word for word. It was a hugely entertaining end to our first day!

Monday:

By bus to the Botanic Gardens to meet botanist Beae Senska, our informative and enthusiastic guide. The Botanisher Garten has the largest plant geography section in the world and with almost dizzying speed we worked our way through Europe, Asia and the Americas. Particularly impressive were twelve unique rock gardens representing different mountain regions, steppe, dune and heathland. There were so many highlights, but one my favourites was the medicinal plants section, beds arranged in the shape of a human body, and the fragrance and touch garden including Mediterranean herbs and pelargonia and the heady scent of the Heliotropium peruvianum.

We visited The Jewish Museum that afternoon. It is housed in a spectacular building designed by Daniel Libeskind, the concept of which is to show both tragedy and continuity in the Jewish experience and by means of changes in perspective and floors and walls which slope, to show a world out of balance. It was a very moving visit and our remarkable guide Karin Grimme brought alive the experience of Jewish women through history, with quiet passion and dignity.

Tuesday:

Potsdam today – to explore the very baroque Schloss Sanssouci, with its breath-taking south facing terraced walls covered with fig trees and vines, and the open vistas, formal gardens, fountains and marble statues of the Sanssouci landscaped park.

Two of us went to the Orangery, first noting the beautiful herbaceous planting and ornamental vegetable borders, then visiting the royal living quarters with original 18^th century parquet floors across which we had to slip and slide in our enormous grey felt slippers (good wheeze to get the tourists doing the polishing for them we thought). Then on into a whole gallery of copies of Rafael’s master works, before climbing the spiral staircase to the top of the observation tower to be rewarded by a beautiful view of the formal symmetry below.

The afternoon was a special treat – a visit to the nearby private garden of nurseryman and plantsman Karl Foerster (1874-1970), little known outside Germany but very influential in his own country. We were shown around the garden by Professor Norbert Kuern – who was in part responsible for the restoration of this inspiring yet very accessible garden, with its sunken garden, spring walk, wild and rock gardens. He talked of Foerster’s interest in the naturalistic planting of William Robinson and in the work of both Jekyll and Lutyens, and of Foerster’s passion for cultivation – Foerster bred many perennials including grasses (the very well-known Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, and I rather liked Carex caryophyllea ‘The Beatles’).  We also admired his hemerocallis hybrids – ‘So Lovely’ really did speak for itself.

After sampling the local bus, tram, overground trains and U Bahn we arrived back at our hotel. Our evening meal was at a particularly impressive vegetarian restaurant, not dissimilar to Brighton’s own Terre a Terre – so little coincidence to find a Brighton woman working there who had previously worked at Terre a Terre!

Wednesday:

The Bauhaus Archiv today.  The building, itself an example of Bauhaus aesthetics, contains an enormous collection of work from the Bauhaus School (1919-1933), including architecture, design, art and photography – work by famous Bauhaus artists including Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger and Oskar Schlemmer.  It was a fascinating reminder of just how influential this movement, started in Germany by Walter Gropius, has been on modern art forms.

This was my first visit to Berlin. I saw and learnt so much, and yet I felt I’d barely touched the surface. Always good to leave wanting more, I’ll be going back for sure! Many thanks to Deborah and Bridge (seen here outside the Bauhaus Archiv) and everyone in the group for making it so special…

Written by Ruth Harris

Our first day was at Hankham Organics, who supply local greengrocers and weekly veg boxes to about 500 households. Pete, who gave us the grand tour and supervised our tasks, was very knowledgeable and clearly passionate about growing organically and running a sustainable business. We got to admire the mighty compost heaps, examine tiny pests and almost-as-tiny predators, and then we were let loose on their precious stock. In the 1.5 acre glasshouse we pruned tomato vines, tended cucumbers and picked beans; then into the field, where we hoed pumpkins and vied to become the slowest leek planters in the world!

Tuesday saw us at Highdown Herbs in Small Dole, working mainly in polytunnels. Arthur, Janet, and Jack taught us how to divide grasses, take herb cuttings, and how to pimp an overgrown and weedy plant-pot. Bridge shared her love and knowledge of herbs, and we found out just how wide this category of plants can be, from amazing magenta-topped Tree Spinach to beautiful Coneflowers (Echinacea) and even Willows, which make the ever-useful aspirin. And we all went home smelling most fragrantly of mint and rosemary.

On Wednesday we visited Gravetye Manor, now a hotel, whose romantic garden was originally designed by William Robinson in the 1880s. Tom, the relatively new head gardener, is reclaiming it from recent neglect and was full of information. The garden tour showed us a contrast of formal and informal areas, including his Zen long border (his name for a manure mulch alongside a gravel path). Vera, Tom’s dog, scared rabbits while we took note of flower names, admired the views, and worked out how soon we could visit the hotel for lunch or high tea. We worked in the walled kitchen garden, planting, pruning, training, digging out weeds, and saving seeds. Some people even got to wrangle live chickens.

Our last day was back in Brighton, in an overgrown secret garden. With some extra professional help, we worked in four teams and wrought an amazing transformation, hacking, hauling, sawing and strimming. Two vanloads of prunings and weeds were taken away, and in just five hours we had revealed the structure of the garden again, uncovering paths, patios and statues that were invisible when we began. The day ended with a very welcome sit-down and delicious meal back at the Garden House.

What did we learn? That coffee and cake are essential to horticultural success, that greyhounds like bean salad, that cucumber rash and uphill hoeing are very bonding experiences. And some other stuff, too… Thank you to Bridge and Deborah for organising it all and giving us a peep into four very different gardening experiences.

Words by Julia Widdows

Photos by Sandy Gee

The gardens are wonderfully varied, giving inspiration at every turn – from the smallest courtyard to large ‘wild’ gardens and allotments – each with its own unique mix of planting and hard landscaping ideas.

The Garden House will be open on the first weekend only, 25^th/26^th June. There’ll be plants and seeds for sale, fresh eggs from our hens, a tombola – and a whole lot more! Our garden is a unique and imaginatively restored old market garden, extending behind other houses to make a very large space filled with vegetables, flowers and many decorative ideas using recycled materials.  We’ll also be offering lunches, wine and soft drinks – so make a date, bring some friends and come along!  Find us at 5 Warleigh Road, Brighton BN1 4NT (side gate!).

For info on all the gardens and downloadable guides, go to www.gardengadabout.org.uk

Carole Klein, patron of the Garden Gadabout, says: “I’m thrilled to be patron of The Sussex Beacon’s Garden Gadabout once again. This year over 70 gorgeous gardens and community spaces will be opening across the two weekends, and there’s a wealth of wonders to discover. As well as scrumptious lunches and teas, many of the gardens this year will be offering something a little bit extra to make your visit even more special.

There’s nothing quite like being a part of making things grow, watching and waiting for the changes that unfold day to day, season to season. The Gadabout is a great opportunity to gather ideas from all sorts of spaces. From bold and stunning contemporary designs, to quiet havens of wildlife – of all shapes and sizes. I’m a passionate enthusiast of sharing our green spaces, it’s just so inspiring to discover what other people have lovingly created. So take a good browse amongst these pages and plan your visit, not forgetting of course where to stop for teas, cake and lunch.

The Garden Gadabout also fulfils an important role in raising essential funds for The Sussex Beacon, enabling them to continue their work, meeting the changing needs of men and women living with HIV. This year the funds raised by the Garden Gadabout are more important than ever, as new diagnosis of HIV continue to increase and fundraising becomes even tougher.

A big thanks goes to all the lovely gardeners who open and share their gardens, to all the volunteers who help them, and to all of you who come along and enjoy this wonderful event.

So go on….get Gadding!”

Cleve West’s garden for The Daily Telegraph was awarded Best Show Garden – quite an accolade and well deserved, this was a beautiful garden and one of our favourites.  We always expect the unexpected with Cleve’s gardens, yet they still have recognisable qualities – strong sculptural forms (last year remember those huge concrete planters? And the year before his dementia-friendly sensory garden with a giant sculptured ball at its centre?), moving water and sensitive planting.

This year his garden’s warm off-yellow plastered and dry-stone walls and flowing water framed an open space containing three 10ft high columns by French artists Serge Bottagisio and Agnès Decoux, with one lying on the ground, that appeared to be ruins but in fact mix the old and new in concrete and terracotta.

The planting looked so unconscious, almost self-seeded in effect, and the colouring exquisite – a soft blend of yellows, silvers and soft-whites – highlighted by the occasional dark red-pink Dianthus cruentus, grasses and airy umbellifers (including parsnip flowers from his own allotment!). Specimen trees of Styphnolobium japonicum (the Japanese pagoda tree), gave scale to the planting, rising up from the sunken gravel area to soften the effect of the monolithic columns.

While an all-year-round opening is neither practical or desirable for smaller garden owners, the long running National Garden Scheme allows many proud gardeners the opportunity to show off their skills for a couple of days each year – and all for good causes.

The ‘Yellow Book’ Scheme, as it is known, was established in 1927 and so has a long history of people opening their gardens to the public. The scheme supports a variety of charities including Macmillan cancer care, Marie Curie nursing service and Perennial – the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society.

We will have plants, dahias and seeds for sale.  Plus, of course, a range of delicious homemade cakes and refreshments!

Opening times: 1pm to 5pm. Come with a friend! You can also find out about the many workshops and courses that are on offer at The Garden House as well as meeting our hens and seeing the progress that we have made in the garden over the past year!

Location: The Garden House, 5 Warleigh Road, Brighton BN1 4NT

We love Angie B’s sketches of the winter garden, and Mandy D. wrote the following piece:

As winter slowly turns to spring no plant lover should miss the chance to visit the glorious winter display at Anglesey Abbey.  Situated not far from Cambridge (not on the Island of Anglesey as most of my friends thought!) this National Trust property and gardens boasts one of the most beautiful and varied winter gardens I have ever seen.

A short walk from the Visitors Centre leads you to the start of the winter garden walk which, even if you did not notice the signs, can be found by following the intoxicating smell of the Sweet Box (Sarcococca), that line the first part of the walkway.

These are swiftly followed by glorious Viburnum, pale pink and sweetly scented, the delightful small yellow winter Aconites and the gorgeous blues of Iris reticulata and deep pinks of Cyclamen coum.

And that’s not all – for those Galanthophiles amongst you (snowdrop lovers to the rest of us!), the Abbey gardens boast over 200 varieties of snowdrop (Galanthus), some labelled and therefore identifiable along the main path and many others in gentle drifts that meander through the woodlands and other areas.  My favourite was Galanthus plicatus ‘Hobsons Choice’ (wondered why I picked that one) and another variety named after Anglesey Abbey itself.

And finally, for stunning shrubs and trees, nothing can beat their display of Cornus – reds, greens and yellows – and the glade of Himalayan Birch (Betula utilis ‘jacquemontii’), with its ghostly white bark and statuesque structure, making all who came across them pause, reflect and for some, stay until the sun went down…

If you add to this a lovely sunny day, good company and even a rainbow on our return, it was the perfect day.   Thanks weather fairy…

Anglesey Abbey: Quy Road, Lode, Cambridge CB25 9EJ / Tel. 01223 810080

The name Galanthus is derived from the Greek words gala, meaning milk, and anthos, meaning flower, in allusion to the colour of the flowers. The plants are more commonly known as ‘snowdrops’, from the German Schneetropfen – this common name refers to a style of earring popular in the 16th and 17th centuries in Germany.

One of the best and boldest of the snowdrops, with rounded bell-shaped scented flowers, is variety ‘S.Arnott’ – a favourite of ours!

• Family: Amaryllidaceae
• Height & spread: 15cm (6in) x 8cm (3in)
• Form: Bulbous perennial
• Soil: Moist but well-drained, moderately fertile
• Aspect: Cool shade
• Hardiness: Fully hardy

This snowdrop is vigorous, with narrow, grey-green leaves 7-16cm (3-6in) long. It has large white flowers, which have an inverted V-shaped green mark at the tip of each inner tepal. They are 2.5-3.5cm (1-1.5in) long, strongly honey-scented and are produced in winter and early spring. They look wonderful planted with dark-leaved plants, like Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ or with bright yellow winter aconites, or carpeting the woodland floor under a flowering witch hazel.

Cultivation: Snowdrops grow well in cool shade in any humus-rich, moist but well-drained soil that does not dry out in summer.

They are prone to narcissus bulb fly, which will tunnel into the bulbs and destroy them, and also grey mould (botrytis), which will appear on the leaves but then rot the bulbs.

Propagation: Sow seed as soon as ripe in containers in an open frame, though as Galanthus species readily hybridise the seed may not come true.

Propagate by twin scaling in summer. With this technique a bulb is cut into pairs of scales, each of which produces bulblets.

Lift and divide clumps of Galanthus “in the green”, as soon as the leaves begin to die back after flowering. Replant each bulb individually, at the same level as before, in holes sufficiently wide to spread out the roots.

When all else is bare, it lifts the spirits when you spot patches of snowdrops appearing under shrubs and trees…

If you want to see many, many varieties of Galanthus growing wild (including many rare varieties) – join us on 12 February for an early spring visit to the stunning gardens of Anglesey Abbey. Truly a garden for all seasons – but particularly beautiful in February when it is at it’s most spectacular, and drifts of white snowdrops and yellow aconites add colour to the frosty landscape (details in the DIARY on this website)…

If you are a gardener then you absolutely must visit Great Dixter, near Rye, East Sussex.  I was lucky enough to go there yesterday for the Christmas Fair (27/28^th Nov only).

The incredible spirit of this wonderful garden still lives on and is a testament to the words of the great horticulturalist Christopher Lloyd who lived and gardened at Great Dixter all his life, leaving the estate to The Great Dixter Trust on his death in 2006.

Great Dixter is a Tudor house bought in 1910 by Nathaniel Lloyd, father of Christopher and author of books on brickwork and topiary, and was restored by Edwin Lutyens. Nathaniel designed the framework of the garden and it was initially planted by Daisy Lloyd, Christopher’s mother, who taught Christopher how to garden.

The house is surrounded by the now world-famous garden that was Christopher Lloyd’s lifelong passion; his influence since the war on amateur gardeners in this country can scarcely be overestimated.   He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants, together with a love of form and colour – and together with his great strength of trying something new Great Dixter was always evolving, always fresh.

In 1996 he became bored with his rose garden, which had been designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and established for more than 70 years, he simply uprooted it. The replacement, a brazen kaleidoscope of sub-tropical plants, sent shock waves through the gardening world.

It is the most inspirational garden, clearly loved and still gardened by Fergus Garrett who was Christopher Lloyd’s head gardener, and who continues as the garden’s creative head.

Yesterday on a cold November day the late autumn structure was astonishing – the yew hedges and topiary, grasses, trees and shrubs looking beautiful in the low November light.

The fires burning in the grates were welcoming – doubtless the timber in the great hall could tell a thousand stories, Christopher Lloyd was alive today I think he would have been delighted to see his extraordinary home filled with people having fun and enjoying the spirit of Great Dixter.

For a great read try: Colour for Adventurous Gardeners; The Well-Tempered Garden; or Cuttings (a collection of writings for the Guardian) – all by Christopher Lloyd.

See the website www.greatdixter.co.uk for events, opening times, and admission costs and location (if you sign up for their newsletter, you’ll be first to hear what’s upcoming!)…

Christopher Lloyd – “The right time to do a job is when you are in the mood to do it.” What wise words!