It's hard to believe that the summer has come to an end already, we've been harvesting pumpkins and squash, as well as a bumper year for apples, All these fruits herald the start of autumn and cooler nighttime temperatures.

One group of plants in the Walled Garden that is bucking the trend seasonally, is our collection of delphiniums. Having been cut back after their first flush of flowers, this collection of 35 cultivars has bounced back with a sea of blue, purple, white and pink spires to delight visitors.

A plant sales area has been refreshed with hundreds of home-grown shrubs to coincide with a great time for planting, making the most of the warm and moist soil.

Our Sunken Garden is settling in well, as the plants make the most of the wetter summer and put down strong roots systems to prepare for their first winter.

Our Dry Garden has undergone a facelift over recent weeks to remove a few plants that have got a little above their station and have started to take over the planting. With those thugs removed, we will plant some of the more delicate species back in that area to maintain that diverse community.

Finally, we share our gardens with wildlife, and it was my desire to understand what birds, mammals and insects inhabited the Gardens. A local ecologist was commissioned to carry out wildlife surveys across the gardens and to our delight he has recorded over 100 species of moth, 8 species of bats and what we hope is a breeding pair of spotted flycatchers. Keep the team in the Visitor Centre up to date with any wildlife sightings that they can feed back to me to help us get a comprehensive list of the species at West Dean Gardens. There will be different styles of management appearing to enhance more diversity in response to this survey, including the creation of a habitat tree as you head up towards the Arboretum.

With best,

Tom Brown, Head Gardener