West Dean Gardens: Drought Tolerant Bed

 West Dean Gardens is one of my favourite gardens to visit at any time of year, there's always so much to see. Everything is always so well done, whether it's training fruit trees, growing vegetables or tending the greenhouses where every plant is in perfect condition. Head Gardener, Tom Brown took over the garden in May 2019 from Sarah Wain and Jim Buckland, and since then has had the effects of Covid to cope with, while making changes in the garden. Every gardener needs to make subtle changes to experiment and keep interest in the garden while retaining some of the fabulous heritage features seen at West Dean. Although there have been more visitors this year, and presumably more volunteers, by mid August, I expected all parts of the gardens to look parched. So what was looking good at West Dean when I visited? 

The absolutely best bit for me was the drought tolerant bed, described on a nearby board as 'Our Dry Meadow is a bold, sustainable project where we have grown drought tolerant perennials and used recycled, crushed concrete as a mulch to reduce weed growth. As gardeners, we need to embrace recycled materials and garden with less water.' 

As you can see, the plants look great, as does the recycled material on the surface. I'd love to emulate this look in my garden, and wonder how deep the top layer is, and what sort of soil is underneath it.

I took lots of photos of the beds, and wonder if Tom will publish a list of the plants he used?

I found this plant in the cutting garden, it's Agastache 'Blue Fortune' I think

This yellow flowered plant above was something I didn't recognise. I asked Tom when I saw him in the vegetable garden to identify it for me, it's Silphium, well worth getting seeds for next year.

I've got one of these plants seen above, thought it was a Rudbeckia, but just looked and think it must be something else. I think this board below is a good way of explaining what's going on in the garden.

The Eupatorium was looking wonderful when we were there, it's a weed and should grow well everywhere surely? I can't grow it in my garden very well, it struggles and gets smaller every year:

There are some great hydrangeas at West Dean, they always make me want to plant some in the garden.

The 300 foot pergola is always a good photo opportunity

And this gorgeous flower seemed to be a clematis flower

And just look at this passion flower found in one of the glasshouses

The glasshouses are immaculately kept, how can plants be kept so healthily? Below you can see the tropical house which looks like it's filled with houseplants

This glasshouse has lots of begonias and ferns

Here's a close up of one with a special geranium in the background

Here's one of the hens eating a pear

These two photos are taken in the fuchsia and pelargonium house

on opposite sides of the glasshouse.

I realise I haven't included the streptocarpus and fern house, another fabulous one:

and then lastly a view of the South Downs where the sheep are kept, showing how parched everything was:

When we arrived at the plant sales, we found all herbs were 50p each, so I bought 18 which was a tray full. I've potted them on and have waited until we got sufficient rain to plant them out. Maybe tonight's rain has wetted the soil?