West Dean Gardens

 On a recent trip to the south coast, I visited West Dean gardens where there was so much looking really good; these photos were taken on 31 August. West Dean gardens have a wonderful mix of beautiful structural features like the Harold Peto designed 300 foot pergola and carefully restored features in the garden. I really enjoy seeing the plantings in various parts of the garden, a particular favourite being the Dry Meadow which looked good last year, and is even better this year. Outstanding plants include Silphium mohri, the yellow flowered plant seen below; I bought a couple from Wildegoose nursery at a plant sale in May but mine haven't reached this splendour, yet this year, maybe next year they will.

There are also wonderful drifts of Echinacea in the mix

and asters growing in glorious profusion

These are persicaria in the photo below, doing really well. I'd love a plant list, or a day's workshop about how to create a dry garden. There are currently lots of interesting sounding courses on their website, but not specifically: 'How to replace your lawn with a dry meadow'.

From the dry meadow we looked at one of the shelters with a beautifully constructed floor

Here are Tim and Lyn enjoying the shelter offered on a damp afternoon.

Some of the huge hydrangea in the garden

and another floor with masses of horse's teeth embedded in it at the top of the pergola

Looking down the pergola

We then went into the walled garden where there's a wealth of things to look at including beautifully trained fruit trees, a kitchen garden, long borders, a cutting garden and greenhouses. I'll start with the cutting garden where the choice of plants to photograph was quite overwhelming. I settled on the dahlias and then couldn't decide on a couple of photos because there were so many fantastic blooms

They are fantastic aren't they? Nothing to say about each one unless I had photographed the name, which I hadn't

The glasshouses are breath taking; this one with begonias and coleus was beautiful

And the final photo of one of the borders with Rudbeckia triloba really pushing the boat out in terms of growth and nicely complementing Rudbeckia goldsturm.

Looking on social media just now, I see Tom Brown will be chatting on episode 27 on Gardeners World tonight at the very early time of 7.30pm.