Propastinacating

Sun 23rd June
Weather: Constantly changing, very windy.

The main High Garden stockbed floated with Pastinaca sativa.

I was on nursery duty today. It has been really wet, so I only had to spot water pot displays. I did some emergency staking of a few Pastinaca sativa (Parsnips) & Lupinus because the wind had really got to them. Then I spot watered garden stock, did some customer & sales work and potted on of different kinds of petunias.

Lupinus polyphyllus 'The Governor' (the blue & white one) & 'Chandelier'
(the yellow one)

Mon 24th June
Weather: A bit windy & cooler, though it was suppose to be about 16°C.

I partook in Fergus's Good Planting study day, which gave advice on how to achieve this, and an insight of the planting choices that made Dixter special. Here are some points to consider:

- understanding your conditions and the requirements of your plants
- to make an effort at the start to help things establish
- breaking our own rules
- being free with colour
- seeing plants in the wild
- aiming to create a 'community of plants'
- being influenced by the landscape
- being influenced by a single plant
- being naturally inquisitive about composition
- thinking of contrast

Good Planting study day: Centranthus ruber in the wild from a New Zealand beach
transposed to here with C. ruber 'Albus' in a drystone wall.

Good Planting study day: one can't believe the painterly quality this community
of plants achieve.

Then I staked the rest of the parsnips just in case, as they have another month of flowering. The reason why they have not been withstanding the wind so well by itself, is because you usually leave parsnips in the ground. But we actually dug these ones up and replanted them in the way that we wanted them, which destabilised them a little, and didn't give them quite enough time to be fully rooted again in the ground. The sap of Pastinaca can burn so one has to be careful when handling them.

Tues 25th June
Weather: Hot & sunny, 17/ 18°C.
Finished staking parsnips. Potted on plugs of Nemophile 'Penny Black' and Erigeron annuus one of our trusty self-sowers.

Weds 26th June
Weather: Lovely and mild.

I put plants in pots for pot displays. Helped out with the lining out and planting of Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus (species formerly known as flava) in the High Garden. Plants are really starting to overspill the paths, there is a certain section that is like walking through two walls of Salvia turkestanica. I went round tweaking the ferocious growth along the edges of the path with peasticks and string.

Thurs 27th June
Weather: Another sunny & mild day, although it had started to change again.

Potted up of Celosia seedlings - lots of watering of gardening stock and greenhouses, and taking heed of what we have at this point. Moved new Exotic plants together. Did a presentation on our Turkey trip. Staked & weeded in the High Garden and did some straight forward pruning of Lonicera purpurissi - taking out two big branches of mainly dead bits.