The High Garden

Great Dixter’s garden in Christopher Lloyd’s words.

A yew archway takes you out of the Long Border and through a passage garden, up to the High Garden. Look towards the house as you walk up the steps. There is a nice echo between the shapes of buildings in the background, and the architectural forms of yew topiary and hedges, in front.

The High Garden was of a pattern typical of kitchen gardens in Edwardian times. Paths are flanked by fairly narrow flower borders, these being backed by espalier fruit trees which cut off the view of vegetable plots behind. I still grow a lot of vegetables, but nursery and garden stock is also assembled here.

The paths form a cross, with a central arena which used to be surrounded by anaemic pink hydrangeas (‘Mme. Riverain’). I have replaced these with bolder shrubs, quite a number of them, conifers. The borders are otherwise the usual Lloyd mix, but with some emphasis on early summer, oriental poppies and lupins, prominent.