This is the second of the ‘Best Garden I Visited this Year’ reviews. I am putting the two Dixter reviews together, (I was asked to withdraw one Dixter review, sadly) and the order in which they appear is no comment on their quality. Given how often people tell me that appreciation of gardens is ‘just a matter of personal taste’ and that therefore no real assessment can be made, I am interested that the reviews seem to share some thoughts about Great Dixter.

Anne Wareham, editor

Valerie Lapthorne

We had four hours to use between appointments in Sussex. Checking the map, I spotted that we were less than an hour from Great Dixter, which I last saw in the early eighties when we gobbled up anything horticultural to teach ourselves how to tackle our own new garden.  So, what was I expecting from this visit thirty plus years later?    

Ideally, plants that were new to me, novel colour or texture combinations and design ideas that I could filch or convert for my own garden. I wanted to immerse myself again in the atmosphere of the Lutyens house, a combination of the existing fifteen century dwelling with a similar house brought from elsewhere and combined in the early 20century, a  Grand Design project requiring close collusion and faith between Lutyens and Lloyd senior. And the fascination that this wonderful house had been lived in by the same differently functional family of Edwardian distant father, difficult talented mother, seven dissimilar children – one of which was the youngest cherubic tumble haired Christopher.

The day for mid-September was perfect, warm enough not to need a coat, bright sunshine and no wind. Slight problem at the ticket office. There was no electricity. Not Dixter’s fault, the whole of Northiam was similarly deprived. Paid by cash but were assured that the tea shop would probably be operational.

We entered by the Meadow Garden for the first view of the house, with the butterflies of anticipation I normally associate with the gate opening at Chelsea Flower Show.

All that was flowering in the meadow were a few autumn crocus, but the main door and porch were decorated with pots in full seasonal bloom.  The snag with layering plants to add more excitement to a quiet area or to make, as here, an impressionable entrance is that it gobbles up paved pathways.

To turn into the sunk garden away from the main axis was to be overwhelmed by plants, to be slapped in the face by end of season lushness requiring a sit-down on a conveniently situated seat facing the pond to recover my breath. I would have been happy to stay there to take it all in, but there was more to see.

With its very narrow paths, it was particularly easy to be swallowed up in the foliage in the Exotic Garden. It could have been a back garden in Singapore, were it not for the lack of humidity.

What I missed were view-points from one area to the next. Something that would tempt the visitor through to the next garden and avoid claustrophobia.

I wonder how difficult it was for CL to work in a garden where he was not responsible for the original design and where his mother dictated the planting. Did this push him to prioritise his botanising and plant husbandry? Few people would be his equal in this area.

Christopher Lloyd loathed bare soil, equating this with institutionalised parks and garden planting. When being shown around a Botanic Garden’s order beds prior to giving an evening lecture, he exclaimed in mock horror, (or was it just horror), “Oh, the soil, the soil, the soil”.

The young guiding education officer responded, “Yes, it’s an acquired taste that you obviously have yet to acquire.”   C.L. turned to Fergus Garrett, “Oh just listen Fergus, a girl who answers back. I do so like a girl who answers back.”

On this same occasion three well qualified staff took him to dinner, to which he invited an old crony from his army days.  They sat at the end of the table like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee and ignored their hosts, who, happily, had the charming Fergus Garrett with whom to talk horticulture.

I admire successful successional planting.   There is a definite art to maintaining a garden that is open to the public and under scrutiny for nine months of the year. And the public is so demanding, requiring perfection at all times, and perhaps thinking that a team of gnomes arrives after closing time to whip out plants that are beginning to be past their best and plant fresh ones

We presented ourselves to the porch for a house tour only to discover it didn’t open until two, so we settled for a bite of lunch. However, the tea counter had no electricity and we were advised to pay in the shop. Unfortunately, although the electrics were on, the computer system needed rebooting and help was on its way. Our bill was £12 and I found £10 cash in my camera bag, and we agreed that we would pay the balance next time.  But of course, no bingeing in the nursery. The nursery although small, had some covetable items and the labels were chattily informative and the prices reasonable. The house was fascinating. It would have been even more enjoyable had more rooms been viewable.

But I shall take away with me the magic of Dixter, a memory of its garden like no other, the romance of its history, and the friendliness of the staff and volunteers and will be back in the spring with my £2.00.

Valerie Lapthorne  Link

And here’s the second review of Great Dixter:

Ruth Brompton-Charlesworth 

The photographs of the garden in the glossy gardening magazines are always a riot of sumptuous colour and fecundity, and the books penned by the garden’s creator are consistently witty, erudite and urbane compositions.  So I must begin, by stating, that like an Elvis fan visiting Memphis, it was as a complete devotee that I finally visited Great Dixter in late spring this year.

We walked through the front gate and there was my first dazzling image of Great Dixter house and garden.  An image that I knew so well from magazines, books and television. It didn’t disappoint. The front meadow on either side of the path leading to the house was lush and green and bejewelled with bright flowers. I made a mental note to myself that I really must remember to buy some Camassias for my garden this autumn. At the end of the path was the magnificent array of pots clustered in front of the porch. It was splendid in its burst of colour, texture and height, again an image that I was very familiar with from countless sources. 

From here we doubled back, entering the Sunk Garden through the arch of the Barn Garden. Colour was (of course) a key factor and the use of the scarlet Ladybird Poppy punctuated the overall displays to great effect.  I made another mental note to myself, this time to see if the shop sold the seed of this stunning plant. 

 The space, however, seemed very claustrophobic, especially when you were sharing it with coach loads of fellow garden lovers. The plants tower above you, particularly at the lowest level, and I nearly fell into the pond as I craned my neck and stepped backwards to see above the vegetation but this was probably more to do with my clumsiness than an overall problem with the design. 

What I loved about this garden (and this is an aspect that I was amazed that others seemed to fail to notice) was the abundant insect life.  Two large pyracantha bushes were positioned at the top of the steps and these plants were simply smothered with Honey Bees. So much so, that I could hear their very loud humming long before I saw them. I had never contemplated this plant for our own garden, generally considering it rather dull and a bit ‘1970s’ for my taste but given the prolific attention of the bees I may well have to rethink my prejudice.  I also noticed that the pond (after being thankful that I hadn’t baptised myself in it) was frequented by Common Blue damselflies. The brilliant blue of their bodies was vivid in the spring sunshine as they flitted about the surface of the water.

We wandered around the rest of the garden, the Long Border (beautiful), the Orchard Garden, High Garden, Peacock Topiary again full of exuberant colour and bursting with a bewildering range of plants.  However, many of the paths rather annoyingly led to a full stop, either a hedge or a drop of about 4 foot to the next path, which necessitated an about-turn for us and the people behind us on the same path.  My husband, never a man for closed in spaces or crowds was less than happy.

 It was then, that I realised, that even I wasn’t as full of complete adoration for the gardens as I had thoroughly expected to be. I loved the meadow areas (complete with Meadow Browns and Common Blue Butterflies) and I loved the topiary, but just not together.  I knew that part of the philosophy of the gardens was the juxtaposition of shocking contrasts but for me the Topiary Lawn was more bothersome than thought provoking. 

The colours throughout the garden were incredible but dare I whisper it to myself? Too many all together? Was this blasphemy? Even the stunning scarlet of the Ladybird Poppy seemed to have been repeated too many times around the garden. It was, however, obviously very popular with we visitors as the hand picked packets of seed had long since sold out and I purchased the last Ladybird Poppy plant in the nursery.

Whilst in general I felt that I had overdosed a little on the vast cacophony of colours and contrasts, I was delighted with the approach to the biodiversity of the garden.  Maybe, many of the visitors wouldn’t notice or know about the wildlife or even recognise that the different gardens would create such a rich variety of habitats, but that wouldn’t matter to the creatures that inhabited them. The fauna could exist in blissful unawareness of the garden’s many visitors just the same as many of the visitor’s would have been unaware of them.  The guidebook, I was also pleased to notice included a section on ‘Biodiversity’ and stated that regular surveys were carried out and the gardens were managed to ‘look after particular species and create opportunities for others’.  Amongst the invertebrates (my particular favourites) listed at Great Dixter were over 270 different types of moth and 148 different spiders!

I have heard it said that you shouldn’t meet your idols and while this doesn’t strictly apply to famous gardens, our visit to Great Dixter hadn’t been at all what I had thought it would be.  The Great Dixter of my imagination (fuelled by idealised construct images from magazines, etc) was of a perfection that couldn’t possibly be achieved in real life.  However, the reality of the interest and provision provided by Great Dixter as a haven for wildlife more than made up for any personal aesthetic anticlimax.

Ruth Brompton-Charlesworth F.L.S.  Website