Christopher Lloyd: His Life at Great Dixter

by Stephen Anderton

Christopher Lloyd (Christo) was one of the greatest English gardeners of the twentieth century, perhaps the finest plantsman of them all. His creation is the garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex, and it is a tribute to his vision and achievement that, after his death in 2006, the Heritage Lottery Fund made a grant of GBP4 million to help preserve it for the nation. This enjoyable and revealing book - the first biography of Christo - is also the story of Dixter from 1910 to 2006, a unique unbroken history of one English house and one English garden spanning a century. It was Christo's father, Nathaniel, who bought the medieval manor at Dixter and called in the fashionable Edwardian architect, Lutyens, to rebuild the house and lay out the garden. And it was his mother, Daisy, who made the first wild garden in the meadows there. Christo was born at Dixter in 1921. Apart from boarding school, war service and a period at horticultural college, he spent his whole life there, constantly re-planting and enriching the garden, while turning out landmark books and exhaustive journalism. Opinionated, argumentative and gloriously eccentric, he changed the face of English gardening through his passions for meadow gardening, dazzling colours and thorough husbandry. As the baby of a family of six - five boys and a girl - Christo was stifled by his adoring mother. Music-loving and sports-hating, he knew the Latin names of plants before he was eight. This fascinating book reveals what made Christo tick by examining his relationships with his generous but scheming mother, his like-minded friends (such as gardeners Anna Pavord and Beth Chatto) and his colleagues (including his head gardener, Fergus Garrett, a plantsman in Christo's own mould).

Genres: Gardening

240 pages, Hardcover

First published March 4, 2010

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating biography of a great gardener and plantsman. I fell in love with Great Dixter when I visited the house and gardens some years ago - this adds to the memories.

[Jose Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book about a great Gardener.
I had read his words on the book 'Dear friend and Gardener' (with Beth Chatto)and was sad to discover, by that time, that he was already dead.
This year I was happy to know that a Biography had been written about the Man and the Garden.
What a great joy was to know closely this english character and his thoughts about gardening and life. He was a master gardener and wrote many books on gardening with his ideas from Great Dixter, his garden, and his influencies, the trips to see gardens or wildflowers around the world and all his friends who loved gardening.
The book also shows us a bit of the Gardening World in England, wich is very interesting, from an English Gardens's admirer point of view.

Next step, read a few of Christopher Lloyd's books and visit Great Dixter, still open to the public, and breath a few nostalgic memories from the place.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Lloyd was a consummate gardener, lecturer, prolific writer and quite quirky and ascerbic. Great Dixter must surely be haunted by Mother Daisy and son Christo. I was fortunate to visit the house and gardens 3 years ago and loved walking and viewing its topiaries flowers shrubs and trees. Book your flight it's a trip worth taking.