| There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile, He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile: He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, And they all lived together in a little crooked house. Anon |
Great Dixter Gardens
English Heritage Historic Garden Grade IThe late Christopher Lloyd's garden in East Sussex is an example of cottage gardening on a large scale.
The Manor of Dixter is first noted in 1220 and structural additions were made again in 1464. In 1910 the English architect Edwin Lutyens restored and extended Great Dixter and, with the owner Nathaniel Lloyd, designed the gardens.
Great Dixter is a beautiful house. The Porch Entrance, Great Hall and cross-wing are open to the public. As one approaches the main entrance of the house, one is reminded of the nursery rhyme - 'There was a crooked man, who lived in a crooked house' - there is a decided lean to one side which I find delightful (Photo 1).
Today, the gardens are cultivated by disciples of son of Nathaniel, author, columnist and lecturer Christopher Lloyd, who was an expert in creating the essence of cottage gardens with bountiful plantings of carefully contrived informality. The garden is composed of a series of small gardens including a fine topiary garden, rose garden, kitchen garden - an attractive mingling of vegetables and flowers - a large orchard with many pockets of wild flowers and a magnificent herbaceous border in summer (Photo 2), truly a joy for any gardener to visit.
Christopher Lloyd liked to tease the followers of garden fashion by shocking their preconceived picture of the correctness of certain colours together, perhaps by placing magenta alongside orange where he felt the juxtaposition will achieve the desired effect, yet at the same time pleasing the less orthodox gardener with a fresh idea!
Those of us who attended Christopher Lloyd's lectures will be eager to see his garden and in particular his style of planting so true to the real cottage garden of abundance (Photo 3).
The garden has its own web pages.
- Christopher Lloyd books for sale - (this link disabled when Java is blocked)