I went to an event at Dixter on a decidedly wet and blustery day – and braved the weather for long enough to see how the garden was looking ‘off-season’. The answer, unsurprisingly, is that even on a miserable winter’s day it looked remarkably good. The shrubs and trees give the borders structure that sustains them with their many textures and shapes.
Even the tropical garden has a mysterious, if utilitarian, beauty. The wrapped plants have the appearance of tribal artefacts that might be found in a museum of anthropology and even the dead and dying foliage provides a foil for the hardier plants.