Month: October 2021

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September*: 2 days at Great Dixter

I’ve visited the garden at Great Dixter twice this year, in late May and early September. On each occasion the garden lived up to its reputation for presenting an ever-changing scene to the visitor. Given the eloquence with which Christopher Lloyd and now Fergus Garrett describe this special corner of East Sussex, I don’t plan to compete but to present some photographs taken on these visits and try to convey the uniqueness of Great Dixter.

May 2021

Meadow Garden
House entrance
Barn Garden
Sunk Garden
Barn Garden: details
Beth’s Poppy: the first sighting of many in May. Gifted to Christopher Lloyd by his friend and correspondent, Beth Chatto
  • Canna or Dahlia? One of Christopher Lloyd’s beloved dachshunds
  • Wall Garden: a masterclass in pot gardening
  • Sheep wool deterring slugs from the hostas
  • Part of the pot garden by the entrance to the house
Yew topiary towers over the herbaceous planting
Peacock Garden: note Beth’s poppy on the right!
We spotted Fergus Garrett working in the High Garden
In May lime green and purple shades predominate: Euphorbia and Allium
The house can be seen from most parts of the garden: here from the High Garden
  • Mown paths in the Orchard
  • Rare sighting of an Azalea at Dixter
Distinct leaf forms of Epimedium and fern
The Cotinus in the Long Border responding well to a severe pruning
The house seen from the Long Border
The Hovel and Topiary Lawn

September 2021

Barn Garden
Vivid shades in the Barn Garden
  • Rosehips
  • Cosmos and Peacocks
  • Stepping down from High to Orchard Garden
The oast house cowls can be glimpsed beyond the Orchard Garden
Long Border
Holding up the mulberry tree
  • Ginger lily (Hedychium)
The Exotic Garden: when we walked through this former rose garden in May the bananas were still protected with a wrapping of straw.
Christopher Lloyd set up Great Dixter Nursery in 1954. Here are the cold frames housing some of the nursery’s treasures. Note the bananas flaring up in the Exotic Garden in the middle distance.

Farewell to Great Dixter for this year. I shall leave the last words to Christopher Lloyd, whose correspondence with Beth Chatto I’m enjoying reading at the moment: Dear Friend and Gardener. In a letter dated 14 September 1997 he muses upon the secret behind his planting style: The placing of plants in relation to their neighbours is so important and so fascinating, colour being only one aspect to consider. Heights, shapes and textures, as well as season of comeliness, are all factors to be considered……I love the bumpiness of my plantings and the way it is possible to place a tall, but thin-textured plant quite near to the front, while channels of low-growers may appear as you approach and lead you to the border’s back or centre…… Continuity of interest is a subject I find specially interesting, and the devices for obtaining it, some of them quite labour-intensive, admittedly, but by no means all.

Visiting Great Dixter in late spring and almost four months later, in late summer, meant that I saw that continuity of interest in action in all its bumpy comeliness. I hope these photographs convey some of the magic of the place.

Kew: 10 October 2021

*September Song: Music: Kurt Weill / Lyrics: Maxwell Anderson