A Great Dixter masterclass for small spaces

summer. This is a strong group of good shapes for winter and would be fine, but unchanging, all year, if Garrett did not add some fleeting flowers to the mix.

In earliest spring Narcissus tazetta begin to flower. They are tender enough to need a hot dry place, but their leaves do not die down until June and should not be cut back if they are to flower again. This does not matter, because there are two lush-looking latecomers working on a different schedule to power up through any dying foliage.

A ginger lily, Hedychium spicatum, is arresting and scented; Eucomis comosa ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ has purple leaves before the flowers appear in late summer. This means there is plenty of foliage interest all year.

Add some autumn-flowering snowdrops, Galanthus reginae-olgae subsp. reginae-olgae, and some for spring as well, and you have a dynamic collection of plants in a tiny area which takes minutes to manage.

SPACE ECOLOGY

What Garrett has been experimenting with is space ecology. This is easiest to understand in a native woodland, where bluebells flower then receive just enough light to complete their lifecycle before the leaf canopy closes.

There are plenty of bulbs and several perennials that are summer-dormant and others that emerge late enough to allow time for the early arrivals to complete their growing cycle.

Sometimes Garrett’s experiments fail. I thought Japanese anemones were indestructible, but when Garrett combined them with Allium cristophii, or ‘Globemaster’, the enormous leaves of the alliums colonised the space. The emerging anemones, which tried to come up before the allium leaves had died down, were shaded out. (Even more sensitive to this are phlox, helenium, and asters. )

But combine the same anemones with Gladiolus byzantinus and both will thrive, because the gladiolus have narrow, upright leaves. And, incidentally, the alliums partner perfectly with Kirengeshoma palmata. It is all a question of timing and observation. Trying to fit one plant into another’s schedule is like a jigsaw puzzle, Garrett explains.

“You can’t say that a wood anemone will sit on top of a hosta and give you succession,” he says. “It depends on the hosta – if you use ‘Krossa Regal’ it works but with ‘Sagae’ it doesn’t because the latter hosta grows earlier and taller than the former and the poor anemone is smothered.”

In another place, lily of the valley (Convallaria) and Euphorbia robbiae coexisted for years, but in the end the convallaria got the upper hand and the euphorbia retreated to the edges of the space. Dixter has always pushed the boundaries of horticultural knowledge and the experiments in progress, which now absorb Garrett, will in time be a help to all gardeners and might offer new ways of intensive gardening, without the labour.