Having been utterly engrossed in our own garden for the last few week it was a reliever to get out and about and start the summer holiday proper . Our destination was Great Dixter , the house and garden of the late , great Christopher Lloyd , nestled in the arcadian East Sussex countryside . The mellow Wealden theatre is a combination of an original 15th one C dwelling with part of a sixteenth century yeoman ’s star sign , transported here from neighbor Kent . In 1912 the lead building was empathetically add together to and update by Edwin Lutyens , accentuating the property ’s tune of great antiquity .
I have to concede to not having fully appreciated or enjoy Great Dixter ’s garden on previous visits . I understand this command might be regard tantamount to blasphemy in horticultural circles , but I put it down to poor timing and my own developing gustation . On newspaper publisher I ought to be in complete harmony with Christopher Lloyd ’s philosophical system of conflate any and every colour in effect . I am glad to report that I am , not before time , converted .
I take Great Dixter to break my garden bring down tight for two reason : first , to study the agreement of jackpot outside the 15th century porch and 2nd to seek intake in the exotic garden . You will already sleep together from posts about our coastal garden at The Watch House that I am bond to develop many of my treasures in containers . The gardeners at Dixter have plenty of open priming to diddle with , but we each coif out to welcome our node with colorful displays of seasonal flowers in their prime . The terracotta mint at Dixter are handmade in England atWhichford Pottery . They are a little pricey , but a grand indulgence every once in a while . Having explained to many of our visitor at the weekend that I do not bother with lot fundament , I was proud of to see that Dixter ’s gardeners do n’t either .
As one expects of Great Dixter , the aggregation of plants is various and unconventional . lily , cannas , lobelias and variegated miscanthus tower over a tumble of dahlias , amaranthus , persicarias and shortsighted geraniums , fuchsias and succulents . As in my garden the subjects are swop around constantly to ensure the display is always fresh , vibrant and pleasing to the eye . The joy of grouping gage in this way is that plants with very different growing demand can come together in perfect harmony , if only temporarily . Dixter also illustrates that it ’s not necessary to stick to the modest range of plant typically train in pots , bring hope and divine guidance to many a compromised gardener . The possibilities are dateless and mistakes easy rectified if they occur . I take neat heart from the joyous abandon with which the eclectic works were accumulate , and was spurred on to try novel permutation myself . I was particularly excite by a form of Persicaria that was twinned with bronze leavedCanna purpurea – a combination I ’d wish to test at home next year .
It ’s hard to reckon that the blank space occupy by the Exotic Garden was not so long ago filled with pink wine . With the helper of trusted Head Gardener Fergus Garrett , Christopher Lloyd pull up the rule book and replaced Edwin Lutyen ’s Edwardian formality with an riotous display of plants plan for tropic effect . The bananas , unfearing Nipponese speciesMusa basjoo , stay in situ all twelvemonth with trade protection through the winter . They are joined by the monolithic palmate leaves ofTetrapanax papyrifer , the rice paper plant life , and coppicedPaulownia tomentosawhich might both be candidates to substitute one of our big evergreen trees next year . Great Dixter was one of the first garden I can recall to discover the virtues ofVerbena bonariensisand its wispy schema stay on to lighten the garden ’s exuberant bodily structure .
At waist meridian there is slews of interest in the form of orange - flower impatiens , dahlias , variegate cannas and more persicarias . Everywhere seedlings take advantage of any straightforward inch of priming coat that receive luminance and water , just as you ’d expect in a rain forest . I gain ground some miserly pleasure from noting that Great Dixter’sBegonia luxurianswere afflicted with at least as much capsid hemipteron damage as my own . Garden pests are , if nothing else , democratic in their deliverance of miserableness . Less than drear was Him Indoors who , having been allowed to drive there and back with the car ’s hood down , was the incarnation of happiness .
Tall chimneys, typical of many of Lutyens’ country houses, rise above the flowers in the Peacock Garden
No visit to Great Dixter is terminated without find the turbulent tapestry of plant life that is the Long Border . Christopher Lloyd believed that no bare ground should be seeable from previous May onwards , and Fergus Garrett bear on to bear on that principle . Any empty space are promptly turn in out with ephemeral plants such as lupin and cannas which peak and disappearance at dissimilar times . marvelous plants are also encourage to the front of the border , join others that crumble gaily over the mellow flagstones .
The Long Border is a perpetually evolving creature . steady visitors will rarely experience it ( and it is an experience ) seem the same style doubly . genus Verbascum , fennel and exotic annuals such asPersicaria orientalisare positively encourage to seed themselves around , contributing to the colorful enthusiasm of the view . experiment is , and will always be , a direct tenet for the nurseryman at Great Dixter , which is why the garden is almost constantly in the spot and at the cutting border of planting design .
I never encounter Christopher Lloyd and visit Great Dixter just once whilst he was still alive ( he passed forth in 2006 ) . fortuitously he was careful to leave his legacy in good helping hand . In Fergus Garrett he has a natural successor , trained and confide in by the great human beings himself , but with a mind of his own . The estate is in the stewardship of a openhearted trustingness which go along and extends the good employment that Christopher Lloyd initiate . Everywhere one looks untried citizenry are gainfully employed , whether it ’s looking after the store , planting up pots or turning the compost heaps . From a visitant ’s perspective Great Dixter continue as its Jehovah must have want it , a beautiful , refreshing , evolving , irreverent and ultimately happy place where his unequalled style of plantmanship endures .
A visitor admires the colourful display of potted plants surrounding the porch at Great Dixter
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Categories : Container gardening , Flowers , Foliage , Garden Design , Large Gardens , Other People ’s Gardens , Planting Design , Plants , Tropical Gardens
send by The Frustrated Gardener
Colourful rudbeckia, amaranthus, dahlias, geraniums andTulbaghia violacea‘Silver Lace’ grace Great Dixter’s porch
An unnamed persicaria, possibly a variation of P.virginianavar.filiformis‘Lance Corporal’
Luytens’ formal rose garden has been replaced by exuberant exotics
A rare sighting of Him Indoors standing on his own two feet
The Long Border is separated from the informality of the Orchard Meadow by a wide flagstone path
Christopher’s Lloyd’s wish was to create a closely woven tapestry of foliage and flowers
Even in hazy sunlight, Great Dixter’s heleniums are dazzling
