Product Description

Following the success of Colour for Adventurous Gardeners, the most adventurous gardener of all time is back to reveal how he plans, creates and maintains his celebrated borders. Most gardeners want their borders to be interesting and colourful over a long season, even year-round if winters are not too severe. Christopher Lloyd OBE shows how he and Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener at Great Dixter, choose and orchestrate plants for maximum effect. Having covered the principles of succession planting, Lloyd explores the ingredients from anchor plants and permanent perennials to drop-in plants and self-sowers - necessary to ensure continually lively borders. The master of his craft reveals the secrets of keeping every inch of border working hard so that planting schemes are created and maintained in brilliant succession. With superb photographs by Jonathan Buckley, this book will inspire as well as instruct those passionate about their garden.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30475 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

About the Author
Christopher Lloyd OBE VMH devoted his life to creating, and writing about, his garden at Great Dixter, which is one of the most exciting and constantly changing gardens of our time. He always captivated readers and audiences with his adventurous and witty approach to his subject. He was the subject of a BBC documentary entitled 'Gardener Provocateur', made after his death in 2006. His best-selling books include Colour for Adventurous Gardeners, as well as a string of other gardening classics such as The Well-Tempered Garden and a tour de force of Meadows. He wrote regularly for magazines and newspapers, including Country Life, American Horticulture and the Guardian.

Customer Reviews

Always beautiful garden
Cristopher Lloyd is a garden magician, like our day's Gertrude Jekyll. In this book he gives advice how to make your garden to bloom from early spring to late autumn and look good in the winter. Pictures from his own garden are beautiful and inspiring. Sometimes the colour combinations are shocking, but the ideas are easily applied to other colour schemes. In addition to design issues, Lloyd gives valuable tips on growing plants and recommendations for the best varietes. The writing style is entertaining and the whole book is really enjoyable.

works in continental climates
Very practical ideas for intensively using space for successive waves of flower-power. Yes, his garden was enormous, but the technique transfers eficaciously to small areas. This is a highly practical book, despite the wonderfully distracting photography. I garden in North Eastern Spain (continental climate, not Mediterranean, where the problems of hardiness and drought-resistance are combined. Many of the combinations or types of plants in this book i already have established, evidence that this is not a book only relevant to Sussex. If you spend 5 years only buying and trying hardy perennials, you will eventually find you have a solid basis of all round colour, on which to play with subsequently! My soil is clay with only home-made compost added. Enjoy.

Excellent for reference, learning and inspiration
I was prepared for another glossy insubstantial coffee table book when I ordered this; I was pleasantly surprised. The photography is beautiful, but it is also very well written. Mr Lloyd is an experienced, down to earth, and creative gardener who has a very easy and entertaining written style. It is useful and enlightening writing - the passing on of knowledge in an unpretentious way. The photos are thoroughly annotated, and the book is logically organised, which makes this a useful guide as well as an entertaining read. It is both a reference tool and a journey through a wise man's beautiful garden.