There is a sign over the door to Great Dixter Nursery’s sales shed, warning in hand-painted letters that all who enter should ‘Duck or Grouse’. Nursery manager Michael Morphy is a well-set man, but he navigates the low-slung medieval lintel with an effortlessly unconscious sideways swoop.
In fact, after more than 30 years at Great Dixter, he takes every quirk of this decidedly quirky place in his stride. At a time when so many smaller nurseries are closing, and the big plant centres increasingly rely on imported plug plants and high-tech tricks to keep costs down and sales up, Michael remains unswervingly committed to the ethos of Christopher Lloyd.
Michael still propagates much of his stock from the plants in those celebrated border displays and grows them on in a traditional soil-based compost that his team makes by hand. It is a slow and labour-intensive process but it produces top-quality plants, grown hard and well prepared for life in a garden situation.
“What we do at Dixter is very old fashioned, but it works. It is relatively high intensity, and there are ways you could do things differently, but we just don’t want to,” he says.
In fact, this is the only style of nursery production he’s ever known. He was a self-taught jobbing gardener when he first came to Great Dixter in search of interesting plants.
“My father gardened, but it was always a chore and I hated it. After school, I spent ten years working in restaurant and hotel management, but when I moved in with my partner, I started messing around with her garden to keep myself out of the pub. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, so I bought a couple of the Dr Hessayon ‘how to’ books to get myself started. Then my mother sent me the RHS Encyclopaedia of Plants and Flowers, which became my bible, and I fell hard for the whole thing.”
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Living in a part of the country with a lot of excellent nurseries, he was spoiled for choice on plant-hunting expeditions, but there was something about Great Dixter that he also fell pretty hard for. “I often went to buy plants, and then one day I walked in and asked if they had any jobs.” Head gardener Fergus Garrett and Kathleen Leighton, who ran the nursery, introduced Michael to Christo. “I wore my red shorts and I think he liked the look of me. Anyway, he gave me a job for the summer.”
There is something magical about seeds germinating, roots forming on cuttings. It blows me away every time
He started work in May 1995, flitting between the nursery, the ornamental borders and the kitchen garden. “Back then, everyone crossed over. If a job needed doing it was all hands on deck and everyone chipped in. It was a great way to learn.”
When the season ended, Christo found him a winter job working for Rosemary Alexander, founder of The English Gardening School, at her nearby home. “It was an interesting experience, but it was solitary gardening, which is not really my thing. I don’t say I like people, but I don’t like being by myself.”
The following spring he was back at Dixter, and he hasn’t left since. “This place is just hugely stimulating,” he says. “The working week was Monday to Sunday. Christo always wanted someone around. We would bring in the veg he asked for, wood for the fires, anything he needed. He was incredibly specific about everything – he believed you should serve exactly ten Brussels sprouts per person – and that made him a great teacher.”
Gradually Michael gravitated towards the nursery, first becoming Kathleen’s deputy and then taking over as manager when she stepped back in 2011. “I like propagation. It hurts when it doesn’t work, but there is something magical about seeds germinating, roots forming on cuttings. It blows me away every time.”
Christo was incredibly specific about everything – he believed you should serve exactly ten Brussels sprouts per person – and that made him a great teacher
He also believes a nursery is the best place to learn about plants, because sooner or later someone will ask you a question you can’t answer. “There are only so many times you’re prepared to say ‘I don’t know’, before you find out.” After 30 years on the front line he has a reputation as something of a plant whisperer, with a skilfully light touch but a self-denigrating habit. “I haven’t really done anything from a horticultural point of view, and I feel out of my depth most of the time,” he says. “Most of my staff know twice as much as I do.”
But ask his team, and you get a different story. Michael, they maintain, is quite simply the kindest, most generous and patient mentor, utterly devoted to nurturing the talented young gardeners who now flock there to learn from him.
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In 2024, a bout of serious illness took his left eye, but he was back in the nursery as soon as he got the doctors’ sign off. “I still get a buzz out of coming to work, the sheer beauty of the place, the amazing people I meet here. And I get a lot of pleasure from seeing them move on in time to go out and do something of their own. Their achievements give me a sense that it has all been worthwhile.”
USEFUL INFORMATION
Great Dixter Nursery, Northiam, Rye, East Sussex TN31 6PH. Tel 01797 254044, shop.greatdixter.co.uk
