May is probably the busiest month on the nursery, where everything seems to happen at once. New cuttings are being taken, while the hardwood cuttings from winter and basal cuttings from early spring are ready to be potted. Our spring seed sowing continues, as autumn sown seed is pricked out. We are potting thousands of plants and mixing lots of soil!
We have just updated our website with plants available for shipping now. There is a much larger selection of plants available onsite for those of you able to visit us.
This month’s Garden Illustrated features our very own Nursery Manager Michael Morphy in an feature written by @greenwichgardener .
The article perfectly captures Michael’s passion for teaching, dedication to students, and his great sense of humour. We’re so grateful to have him!
This weekend we welcome nurseries and plants people from near and far to our spring plant fair.
There will be talks at by nursery people at their stalls over both days.
Our famous cake stall, barbecue and loggia will be providing refreshments and the garden will be open for you to enjoy.
Please do join us if you have the chance. The fair runs from 11am till 4pm each day.
The Nursery scholar spends a year working in the nursery at Great Dixter learning from the team of friendly and knowledgeable staff.
They will learn to manage, propagate and cultivate annuals, perennials, ferns, shrubs and trees from the garden here at Great Dixter, take part in regular plant idents and attend on site lectures.
Applications for the 2026-27 scholarship are now open. Follow the link in our bio or visit the website under learning. The deadline for applications is the 30th March.
There is one week left to apply for the Nursery Scholarship 2026-27.
The Nursery scholar spends a year working in the nursery at Great Dixter learning from the team of friendly and knowledgeable staff. They will learn to manage propagate and cultivate annuals, perennials, ferns, shrubs and trees from the garden here at Great Dixter, take part in regular plant idents and attend on site lectures. 85% of plants grown by us are produced on site. The nursery is unusual in growing in a loam based peat free potting medium which we make ourselves.
The aim of the scholarship is to ensure that these historic but effective methods are passed on to the next generation of nursery workers. Previous scholars have gone on to work at York Gate Leeds, Kew gardens London, the National Trust Plant Conservation Centre Devon, The RHS and open nurseries of their own.
The placement begins in September each year at the same time as our garden scholars. The nursery scholar is a paid position and there is the option of living in subsidised accommodation on site. Anyone joining without a RHS Level 2 in horticulture will receive time off and funding to gain an RHS qualification during their time with us.
Candidates must have the right to work in the UK.
See the link in our bio or visit the website and find the position under learning.
#greatdixternurseries #propagation #scholarship #greatdixter #plantnursery
Applications for the 2026-27 nursery scholarship are now open.
The Nursery scholar spends a year working in the nursery at Great Dixter learning from the team of friendly and knowledgeable staff.
They will learn to manage, propagate and cultivate annuals, perennials, ferns, shrubs and trees from the garden here at Great Dixter, take part in regular plant idents and attend on site lectures. 85% of plants grown by us are produced on site. The nursery is unusual in growing in a loam based peat free potting medium which we make ourselves.
The aim of the scholarship is to ensure that these historic but effective methods are passed on to the next generation of nursery workers. Previous scholars have gone on to work at York Gate Leeds, Kew gardens London, the National Trust Plant Conservation Centre Devon, The RHS and open nurseries of their own.
The placement begins in September each year at the same time as our garden scholars. The nursery scholar is a paid position and there is the option of living in subsidised accommodation on site. Anyone joining without a RHS Level 2 in horticulture will receive time off and funding to gain an RHS qualification during their time with us.
Candidates must have the right to work in the UK.
To apply please download and complete the application form and send it to [email protected] along with a covering email and CV.
The deadline for applications is the 30th March. Interviews will take place in person or Zoom on the 15th April 2026.
See our website under learning or follow the link in our bio.
#greatdixternurseries #propagation #plantpropagation #greatdixter #scholarship
Our nursery catalogue for 2026 has arrived. We work on it hand in hand with the garden team, planning the selection of plants we will be offering throughout the year. This year’s edition is full of new additions and Dixter classics, all tried and tested here.
A PDF version of the catalogue is available on our website or you can purchase a copy online or onsite from us at the nursery. Plants are available from the nursery, which is open year round or via mail order.
Over the winter we have been working hard making improvements to the nursery. We have pressed ahead with our Hellebore breeding, slightly more challenging in the wet weather. We are also working more on our bulb offering, making intentional crosses of Galanthus cultivars. We will grow on the seed produced and hopefully make selections in years to come.
Last year our Nursery Scholar Isabel @isabel_entopia re-imagined one half of our sand beds. The beds were created in 2020 by Scholar Margaret Easter, inspired by visits to John Little’s Hilldrop Garden in Essex.
The bed was built up over the winter of 2024 and a new substrate mix was added incorporating crushed brick, grit and inoculated biochar with the sand. Isabel sourced and grew a whole new palette of plants for the project drawing on her expertise in Mediterranean flora.
The renewed bed is experimental, allowing us to observe how these mostly drought tolerant plants react and behave in our locality. It also becomes a stock bed to propagate from, allowing us to expand our offering at the nursery.
This winter we have renovated the second half of the bed which will be planted by our current scholar Lex @lexwoodweber this spring.
Music by @shaun.r.b
#sandbed #greatdixternurseries #propagation #plantpropagation #greatdixter
It has been another busy year at the Nursery. We've been focused on long-term projects, further developing our hellebore selection, and refining our Galanthus and Narcissus chipping process.
Our propagation experiments continue, despite the challenges of our low-tech setup, and we have been trialling new plants in our stock beds. Former scholar Isabel revamped half of our sand bed, introducing new plants to enhance our offerings.
Looking forward to 2026, we will be attending more plant fairs, hosting our March and September propagation study days, and giving a monthly glimpse into what we are up to as part of the behind-the-scenes tours.
Wishing you a happy 2026!
#2026 #greatdixternurseries #propagation #plantpropagation #plantnursery
Nursery Goblin Dispatch
Normandy
In mid-October, we embarked on our first international excursion to visit three extraordinary gardens in Normandy, each shaped by a distinctive vision of what a garden can be.
Our first stop was Jardin Le Vasterival, a woodland garden cultivated over 50 years by Princess Greta Sturdza. She transformed a dense thicket into a layered tapestry of woody and herbaceous plants that celebrates all four seasons. A central technique she developed, ‘transparency pruning’ maintains the natural form of trees and shrubs while allowing light and rain to penetrate the canopy, fostering a rich, layered understory. Plants are propagated through cuttings and grafting, then grown in unprotected outdoor beds to toughen them to the local soil and climate.
Next, we visited Mark Brown, who has been gardening in Normandy since the 1980s. Over the past 20 years, he has transformed a former pasture into L’Aube des Fleurs (The Dawn of Flowers), a living archive of prehistoric plant life - from the earliest terrestrial plants and ferns, to conifers, cycads, and finally the first flowering plants. Mark’s meticulously crafted collages and maps offer a glimpse of the garden’s evolution across millennia - and of what it will look like in decades to come.
Our final stop was Le Jardin Plume, created in 1996 by Sylvie and Patrick Quibel. A celebration of perennial abundance, the garden is dynamic, constantly shifting through the seasons. By October, it becomes an ode to grasses: seas of movement, whether planted in large geometric blocks or enclosed garden rooms. A small on-site nursery offers many of the plants selected and grown by Sylvie and Patrick over the years, including cultivars they have chosen from garden seedlings.
We’re deeply grateful to Aurélie André at Jardin Le Vasterival, Mark Brown, and Sylvie and Patrick Quibel for their generosity - and to the Christopher Lloyd Bursary for helping to fund the trip.
#jardinlevasterival #princesssturdza #markbrown #laubedesfleurs #septpromenadesavecmarkbrown #lejardinplume #sylvieetpatrickquibel
Our autumn plant offering is now live on our website. Hundreds of plants have been added, perfect for planting this autumn. We are able to ship plants anywhere in the UK and we send plants throughout the year.
Follow the link in our bio or visit the Great Dixter website to view the full list of plants available.
