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.

Describes the plants grown by Christopher Lloyd in his garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex.

“Delightful!” —The New York Times Book Review Discover a world of beauty and creativity! Chanticleer has been called the most romantic, imaginative, and exciting public garden in America. It is a place of pleasure and learning, relaxing yet filled with ideas to take home. And now those lessons are available for everyone in this stunning book! You’ll learn techniques specific to different conditions and plant palettes; how to use hardscape materials in a fresh way; and how to achieve the perfect union between plant and site. And Rob Cardillo’s exquisite photographs of exciting combinations will be sure to stimulate your own creativity. Whether you’re already under Chanticleer’s spell or have yet to visit, The Art of Gardening will enable you to bring the special magic that pervades this most artful of gardens into your own home landscape.

In this intimate collection of written and photographic contributions, Christopher Lloyd’s wide circle of family and friends describe what Great Dixter means to them.

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 £4 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).

Describing over 1000 plants, with common names, descriptions and personal judgements on thousands of species and varieties, Christopher Lloyd outlines how to choose perennial herbaceous plants, including corms and bulbs, and what to avoid.

“Vernon’s gorgeously illustrated guide…is an indispensable resource for anyone looking to add a powerful punch of color to their garden.” —Library Journal The Flower-Powered Garden urges home gardeners to embrace one of the most joyful and important parts of the garden—color! Andy Vernon, a self-professed flower fanatic, highlights perennials and annuals that pack a punch, and shares 15 color combinations that can be used in containers and gardens. The boisterous combinations are inspired by some of Vernon’s favorite things—like sherbet, birds, and candy. A floripedia of 50 marvelous plants includes colorful favorites like dahlias, petunias, hollyhocks, fuchsias, and more. Vernon also shares basic gardening tips, with helpful advice on planting, watering, soil, and growing in containers. This colorful guide has everything you need to supercharge your garden with the power of flowers!