Cuttings - Tapa dura

Christopher Lloyd constantly reshaped and replanted his garden at Great Dixter, because, as he said: 'We don't want to be wishy-washy on the fence.' He loved colour - praising 'extra oomph' and 'the immense value of red' - and he hated fashion ('that awful phrase, good taste'). This selection reflects his passions and challenges, his eagerness to experiment, his appetites and his prodigious knowledge as a plantsman. His columns for the "Guardian" are as vigorous as his gardening style, advising, entertaining and cajoling his readers as he guides them through the gardening year.

Christopher Lloyd, the youngest of 6 children, was born at Great Dixter, a Lutyens house and garden, where his father designed the sunk garden and planted the yew hedges and his formidable mother (known at Great Dixter as 'the Management) taught him to garden. Christo served in the Army during the war, but soon he was setting up a nursery specialising in unusual plants, back at Great Dixter where he lived for the rest of his long life. He published numerous very successful gardening books, and made a name for himself as the foremost British gardener and British garden writer of his generation. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Open University and an OBE for his services to horticulture, but it was the Royal Horticultural Societies Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) that gave him the greatest satisfaction. He died, aged 84, in 2006.