Garden Tour in 2013. Great Dixter.

At this moment there is not much to do in the garden ...., so let us daydream a little,

I want to tell you about my visit to Great Dixter last year, the garden of Christopher Lloyd in England. It's mid-July, beautiful weather, and 26 degrees Celsius.

I wanted to see the old house first. Whilst I entered the ancient living room, I could imagine Christopher by the great fireplace writing his letters and books. The attendant pointed me to another room one floor up from which there was a beautiful view over the garden. The house was a joy, but the garden even more so!

I had visited the garden years ago. I noticed that the plants looking much neater than the last time I was there. They also looked taller and had nice bright colours. An exuberant celebration of plants in yellow, red, purple and white.

But there were also subtle combinations, for example, Geranium with Salvia and Nepeta in mauve tones. Also desirable species witch I had never seen before. For instance the soft pink Angel's fishing ( Dierama ) in the sunken garden .

Endlessly I wandered around this garden. How spacious the garden was, the large groups of plants, giving a lot of power. It almost felt like a very large painting by Karel Appel! (Dutch painter)

At the end of my visit as a souvenir I bought myself a plant at the nursery of Great Dixter. After much deliberation, I chose the yellow torch, called Christo 's Yellow Lightning. A Verbascum, approximately 1.80m high. It will look nice in my front yard.

Daydreaming is fine, but in every garden I also learn something of the owner. For instance the philosophy of Christopher Lloyd: Be creative and feel free to do what you like.

With this in mind, I ordered red dahlias ( Naomi ) and blue potatoes ( Bleue d' Atrois ) to combine with my pink roses!

info about my garden click here