My first week at Great Dixter has flown by! So much so that this is the first entry into my blog.

I arrived last Monday, a little nervous, to a warm welcome from Aaron and a loud one from the dogs. My room is over the office, has a beautiful four poster single bed and a view of the exotic garden. After 5 weeks of sunshine with virtually no rain, I managed to bring torrential rain with me on my first morning and made use of my new waterproof trousers that Nick and I were laughing at the day before, 'ha ha as if you'll need those' etc. A shame I thought it silly to bring wellies and didn't bother. My walking boots were soaked and I almost ended up with trench foot by the end of the day!

I have been shadowing Tangi all week which has been a delight as he is an excellent gardener and a lot of fun. We started off clearing a corner of the kitchen gravel path of ox-eye daisies, cutting them right down to the root and putting the seed heads on the boiler to dry. Fergus explained that many of the beds are going through a transitional period and much of our time over the next few weeks will be spent clearing plants and bedding out. Planting goes on here until at least the middle of August and the benefits of this are reaped well into October.

So we moved on to work on a bed in the high garden that had been filled with Aquilegia chrysantha 'Yellow Star' and tulip bulbs. The flowers were drooping so we lifted the Aquilegia, removed the flowers and transported the plants to the nursery. The bulbs were stored away in the dry. At the nursery with Fergus, we looked at what we would like to fill the space and decided on Dahlia 'Twynings After Eight'. The foliage is a bold dark maroon which was chosen to complement the soft greens already in place. We added Verbena bonariensis to fill gaps.

On Thursday, we awoke to terrible weather. Rain (good) but a howling wind that just would not let up (bad!). The morning was spent trying to rescue Verbascum and other tall perennials with staking and as the day progressed, Fergus became more and more concerned about losing the Zinnias. It was all hands on deck for Thursday and Friday with each Zinnia being individually staked. Some losses were incurred but they obviously loved the attention as this morning, I noticed they had all grown significantly over the weekend.