''Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners'' is
about the most exciting plants grown by Christopher
Lloyd in his garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex. The
great plantsman tells the story of his Exotic Garden,
which has delighted, and sometimes shocked, summer
visitors since it replaced the Edwardian rose garden
nearly fifteen years ago. The rose garden, designed by
Edward Lutyens, had remained unchanged for nearly eighty
years. Then, in 1993, much to the horror of many
establishment figures, Lloyd asked his newly appointed
head gardener Fergus Garrett to eliminate the roses.'The
noise of tearing old rose roots as they were being
exhumed', he writes, 'was music to my ears.' And then
the fun began: the bold foliage of palms was combined
with handsome cut-leaved sumach and arching New Zealand
flax; statuesque cannas and bright dahlias, threaded
with mauve verbena and infilled with annual climbers,
added dazzling colour from June until the first frosts,
and the whole feeling created was one of being wrapped
in a voluptuous living community. For everyone who loves
reading Christopher Lloyd, ''Exotic Planting for
Adventurous Gardeners'' is an unexpected bonus.His last
and most adventurous work was almost complete at the
time of his death in 2006 and, having lived a long life
helping other people, a handful of his gardening friends
gladly picked up the reigns.Among them are the novelist
Frank Ronan who has taken overall responsibility for
completing the text, and Anna Pavord who contributes an
opening chapter on exotic gardens in history.
Illustrated with hundreds of photographs by Jonathan
Buckley, ''Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners''
both inspires and instructs. Few gardeners will be able
to resist Lloyd's call to 'do something outlandish, to
splash out, and be freer than ever'. |
|