Gardening

Inspirational love letter to species-rich meadows

Gardeners will revel in reissue of classic handbook on managing grass rich pasture

Christopher Lloyd’s words of wit and wisdom were drawn from a lifetime spent caring for and developing the species-rich meadows of his garden at Great Dixter

Fionnuala Fallon's face
Fionnuala Fallon
Sat Jun 18 2016 - 04:00

When the late Christopher Lloyd's seminal book Meadows was first published back in 2004, few gardeners knew or cared much about the subject.

Lloyd’s words of wit and wisdom were drawn from a lifetime spent caring for and developing the species-rich meadows of his garden at Great Dixter, and so he succeeded in transforming public opinion. In many ways, the book could be described as a love letter.

“To see a meadow in full bloom is a great delight – it’s alive and teeming with life, mysterious, dynamic and seemingly out of our control”, began his opening paragraph.

Inspirational as it was Meadows also served as a practical handbook regarding the establishment and management of true grass-rich meadows, with chapters on everything from the methods of reducing the fertility of the soil, the important differences between aggressive grasses and what Lloyd calls "good grasses", and the many perennials and bulbs that can be used to extend the seasons of interest.

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Twelve years on from its original publication, Meadows has just been reissued by the British publishing house Pimpernel Press.

Inspiring mentor

It now comes with the valuable addition of new photographs and an excellent, lengthy introduction by Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter’s long-time head-gardener and a man for whom Lloyd was not only an inspiring mentor but a dear friend.

Hugely respected within horticultural circles as a creative, skilful gardener in his own right, Garrett’s deeply personal observations on the continued evolution of Dixter’s meadows – as well as the evolution of his and others’ attitudes towards meadows in general – makes for fascinating reading.

Visiting Dixter for the first time in 1985 as a young horticultural student, he was entirely unimpressed, remarking that the long grass was out of place and “dragged the garden down”. The idea that those same meadows served to connect Dixter’s gardens to the wider landscape and support biodiversity didn’t, Garrett freely admits, immediately occur to him.

But meadows are famously seductive, and it was that initial visit that sowed the seeds of what has since become his lifelong passion.

Meadows at Great Dixter and Beyond, is available in hardback and costs £30. See pimpernelpress.com