‘Good taste’ which is a swear word as far as I’m concerned.’ [Christopher Lloyd]
Christopher Lloyd, gardener and garden writer, died in 2006. Yet, his great garden at ‘Great Dixter’ is still so alive. It’s as if he still has his (green) finger on its pulse.
How to describe it?
Bold, experimental, a riot of colour, imaginative. Elusive – you think you’ve understood it and then it’s changed again.
Two of the best attempts at a description I found linked to the following short film that shows Dixter in one of its many moods. An anonymous comment from a visitor below the clip and one from the photographer Howard Sooley who has attempted to capture its essence on film:
‘It’s like walking into a party at exactly the best hour. So welcoming and ALIVE. The plants are left to reach out and tap you on the shoulder, make you duck as you walk past or even walk sideways slowly as if you’re weaving your way between the fragrant backs and elbows of the party guests…’
‘Many gardens are like looking at a painting. Whereas Dixter is as if you have walked into the painting’
