February 2024

34
Wanstead Village Directory
vbbm q Succession dg Success
Members of Aldersbrook Horticultural Society are delighted to
welcome Fergus Garrett, the Head Gardener of Great Dixter Garden in
West Sussex, to their February meeting. Ruth Martin reports
Fergus Garrett is described as one of
the most influential living garden
designers and horticultural educators
in Britain today. Since 2006, he has been
the Chief Executive of the Great Dixter Trust
and has continued to develop the garden,
building on the work of Christopher Lloyd
(1921–2006), world-renowned gardener and
horticulturalist. Under Fergus’s leadership,
the garden has become a centre for
education and a place of pilgrimage for
horticulturalists from around the world.
At the age of 27, Fergus joined the Great
Dixter team and worked closely with owner
Christopher Lloyd, who wrote of Garrett:
“Fergus is an amazing proselytiser. He believes
in what we are doing and spreads the word…
The number of visitors bears witness to his
success. He can grip an audience right from
the start, but he is totally unselfish. As long as
he is at the helm, I have no fears for Dixter. He
is an incredibly hard worker.”
The garden at Great Dixter is managed in the
same way as in Christopher Lloyd’s time, with
its vibrant planting giving high-impact visual
displays – the mixed borders are densely
planted with trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs,
annuals and climbers. There is no bare soil and
the planting is within a strong infrastructure
of buildings, garden hedges and landscaped
trees. Plants are fed with organic waste and
no cutting back takes place until spring,
providing a good resource for wildlife. Wild
flower meadows surround the gardens and
these are cut twice a year after the seeds are
set. Trees within the meadows are allowed to
grow naturally without too much intervention
through pruning. Outside the house, there is
always a beautiful display of bulbs regularly
changed to reflect the season. At Great Dixter,
much attention is paid to encouraging wildlife
– ecological surveys show the abundance
of insects and birds, and water is from their
own borehole. They grow most of the plants
themselves and are constantly experimenting
with different forms of planting.
At our February meeting, Fergus will be
speaking about succession planting – showing
us how to keep our borders well planted
throughout the year, just as the team at Great
Dixter manage to do so successfully. There will
also be plenty of opportunities for questions
at the end of his talk.
Originally established in 1918, Aldersbrook
Horticultural Society was reformed in 2018 and
now meets regularly on the second Tuesday
of each month at the Aldersbrook Bowls Club.
We are a friendly bunch: keen gardeners,
novice gardeners, indoor gardeners, balcony
gardeners, allotmenteers and those interested
in the local natural environment. We organise
two visits a year to interesting gardens and
maintain the gardens at Aldersbrook Bowls
Club and Aldersbrook Medical Centre.
Fergus’s talk will take place on 13 February
at Aldersbrook Bowls Club from 7.30pm
(visitors: £5). Visit wnstd.com/ahs or email
aldersbrookhorticul@gmail.com
To advertise, call 020 8819 6645 or visit wnstd.com