Autumn Newsletter 2006

Great Dixter Autumn Newsletter 2006

Friends
Friends of Great Dixter now number more than 340 and between them have raised a total of over £333,000. Over 100 people attended the first Friends Day on 18th September and enjoyed access to the House and Gardens, mingling with the gardeners and other staff. The next Friends Day is planned for Monday 30th April 2007. We are grateful to everybody who has supported us.


Professional Fundraiser
The Charitable Trust has been fortunate to engage the services of Theresa Lloyd (no relation) as a fundraising consultant to give our fundraising an overall strategy. The work of masterminding our lottery appeal and coordinating appeals to other charitable trusts will fall to a new Campaign Director who is being recruited at the moment.


Summer Season
2006 brought over 37,000 visitors to the garden in spite of the extremes of weather that we experienced. Great Dixter’s ability to inspire shows no sign of diminishing. 40,000 would be our ideal visitor number without overcrowding or wearing out the garden and giving visitors a quality experience when they come here.

Events

Snowdrop and Crocus Weekends
24th and 25th February and 3rd and 4th March. The Garden will be open from 10am-4pm each day.


Study Days are planned for the following dates, all led by Head Gardener, Fergus Garrett.
· Preparing your border for spring and summer, Monday 26th February.
· Good Planting and Border Management, Monday 16th April.
· Meadow Gardening, Monday 14th May.
· Succession planting in the mixed border, Monday 9th July.
· Exotic Gardening, Monday 10th September.
· Good Planting and Border Management, Monday 17th September.
For further details see our website, www.greatdixter.co.uk

Nursery
The nursery continues to be open throughout the winter from 9am to 12:30pm and 1:30pm to 4:30pm Monday – Friday and 9am to 12pm on Saturday. Clematis and a wide selection of herbaceous perennials are always available. The nursery is open for mail order this time of
the year.
Vegetable Garden
Seasonal work proceeds apace in the vegetable garden with raspberry pruning and digging in copious amounts of Dixter compost to counteract the heavy clay.

Dogs
Christos’ two dog’s Canna and Yucca are both doing fine in the care of Aaron Bertelsen and still enjoy free run of the house and gardens. Aaron has been honoured with Honorary Life Membership of the Southern Dachshund Association in Christos’ memory.

Projects
There is extensive work required on the North elevation of the Great Hall to replace decaying timbers. This work is planned to commence in the winter of 2008 once the necessary funds have been raised. We have felled a number of Oaks from our own woods in readiness and we are delighted to be using home-grown timber, as was the case when Dixter was built in 1460.


www.greatdixter.co.uk