The View from Great Dixter: Christopher Lloyd's Garden Legacy

This is NOT a garden book. It IS a garden memoir, and is such, is an enjoyable read. It is a series of memoirs and encounters people have had with Christo and Dexter. Sounds like a delightful, unique place to visit. I was quite privileged to attend a seminar by Fergus Garrett about two months ago---at the end of an interminable winter. He is effervescent, delighted with Dixter and with meeting people, and signed my copy of this book. He invited me to come to Dixter and have tea and cake with him!!

For anyone who has visited Great Dixter in England, or has wanted to, this is a great memoir. Written by friends and fellow gardeners this is an affectionate portrait of a passionate, creative and sometimes prickly gardener. Not to be missed, this book is a beautiful and ideal gift for gardeners.

This was a Christmas present for my daughter who has just begun lanscaping her Brooklyn garden. She really looks forward to reading the book and getting inspiration from it. I saw a good review of it in the Chicago Tribune and that's why I bought it for her.

This book is such an inspiration. I love getting to know this special man better. Of course, he's not around any moreto get to know directly.

This book is an entertaining glimpse of the great gardening personality through the eyes of family and friends. The garden and house feature in many comments, but the essence of the book is memories of the person through the eyes of many guests to Dixter. This is not the type of gardening book I usually purchase, as I am much more interested in the gardens than the people, but I am glad to have read it, for he was an intriguing man, and his lifestyle resonated with me.

What a wonderful tribute to Christopher Lloyd and to life itself! Some of the remembrances written by friends and family of Christo brought tears to my eyes, so filled were they with love, humor, and history. We encountered him a time or two in our annual visits to Great Dixter and thought he was a marvel - a tad cranky, yes, but so incredibly knowledgeable. This book captures all of that and is filled with beautiful pictures of a truly enchanting place. If you can go to only one great house and garden in England, this is the one. This book is one to go back to over and over again.

There will be many competing claims, but I would put Christopher Lloyd right at the top of the list of great gardeners, as much for his writing as for his marvelous stewardship of Great Dixter. This book makes it clear that he and his garden were absolutely unique and brilliant. This book is a gift to all of us, as was Christo. It's a masterpiece!

I have recently been confined to bed following an operation and this book has aided my recovery considerably! Apart from pausing to eat, sleep or ablute I found the book difficult to put down.The book is a collection of short essays and reminiscences of the many friends and acquaintances of the great 20th century gardener and writer, Christopher Lloyd, who died in 2006. Whoever collected and edited these contributions (I think it was something of a collaborative effort) has done a first-class job. Almost without exception they are elegant, witty, hugely descriptive and thereby very informative.Christopher Lloyd was born at Great Dixter in Kent which, with its wonderfully romantic garden inspired by Gertrude Jekyll, forms the backdrop to much of what is recounted in the book. He spent his whole life living in the house where he was born. As well as being a skilled gardening writer and a consummate plantsman, Lloyd was also a bon viveur and skilled cook. The descriptions of his old-fashioned steamed puddings and turbot 'landed that morning at Hastings' had my mouth watering! However, his friends do not 'hold back' when describing his tetchiness, and some of them aver that this bordered on rudeness to people who had 'not done their homework'. But nobody seemed to mind, because this great man's achievements were so obvious and well-respected.At first glance, Great Dixter is a quintessential English country garden, but in his approach Christopher Lloyd was something of an iconoclast. So when his patience with the rose garden finally gave in, out came the roses and in came the sub-tropical plants! If you have been to Sissinghurst but never to Dixter then I urge you to go. Sissinghurst is the elegantly coutured lady with not a strand of hair out of place. Her whole ensemble is colour co-ordinated. Dixter is her rather blowsy cousin, with painted lips and a bright summer frock. A straw hat keeps her slightly untidy hair in place! The whole effect is utterly charming.Back to Lloyd. Despite advancing years, his interest in people never waned. They, as well as his garden, were his life-blood. He had no need for television or radio, and I doubt that he could have possibly understood some of the questionable values of our modern world. Celebrity culture, materialism and shallow values would all have been anathema to him.So here is a book which is a lasting testament to one of those great 20th century men, the likes of which I doubt we shall see again, for they are truly a dying breed. For anyone who knows Great Dixter this is an essential book to have to understand better why and how it is still there. Hopefully the Great Dixter Trust will be able to allow us all to enjoy Christopher Lloyd's legacy in perpetuity. His friends are even luckier. They have their own memories to treasure.

I have this day received this delightful book put together by Fergus and Rosemary, but sadly it the same book I have ordered again from Amazon with a different title-'Dear Christo'.The book is made up of the thoughts by gardening people who have stayed at Great Dixter over the last three decades of his life.Very enjoyable read. Plenty of coloured photos throughout the book. Sorry the USA edition available in UK has a different title.The same thing happened with Helen Dillions recent book.

This is an excellent and fascinating book, beautifully illustrated and of great interest to anyone impressed by Christopher Lloyd or Great Dixter - but beware! The book titled "The View from Great Dixter: Christopher Lloyd's Garden Legacy" which looks as if it were a different book in the same series is in fact the identical book, just with a different title and cover! Misleading is putting it mildly!

Bit disappointed with this book. A better title would be 'Point of View of Great Dixter' as it is many different recollections with few photos of the garden. Would have much preferred bigger and more photos and less assorted chat.

good value book