Description

‘He was the best informed, liveliest and most innovative gardening writer of our times’ GUARDIAN

‘Infuriating, irascible … a brilliant gardener and a brilliant writer’ Monty Don, Observer

Christo Lloyd was recognised as one of the foremost gardeners and garden writers of the 20th century. Here, for the first time, is the definitive collection of his best, most informative, and so often amusing, garden writing.

Christo on gardening: Ours, in its humble way, is an art as well as a craft. At the same time it keeps us in touch with the earth, the seasons, and with that complex of interrelated forces both animate and inanimate which we call nature. It is a humanizing occupation.

On weeding: Many gardeners will agree that hand-weeding is not the terrible drudgery that it is often made out to be. Some people find in it a kind of soothing monotony. It leaves their minds free to develop the plot for their next novel or to perfect the brilliant repartee with which they should have encountered a relative’s latest example of unreasonableness.

Publisher Review

British horticulture is blessed with many inspired plantsmen and elegant writers, but rarely do those qualities combine as seamlessly as in Christopher Lloyd * INDEPENDENT * Until the last few years of his life, Christo could often be found in his kitchen, once he had taken an early-morning walk round the garden to find inspiration for an article, and then typed it in his deceptively conversational style on his laptop. Seasons were observed, as they would have been in his mother's day. Christo, we miss you. Your distinctive voice which still echoes through my head whenever I open any of your books. The flame from the log fires may have died down, but the sparks you ignited in us will spread far and wide, long down the ages -- Beth Chatto He was the most interesting plantsman I have ever known -- Alan Titchmarsh This is the man at his best: frank, provoking, erudite and, of course, very funny * OBSERVER * A brilliant gardener and a brilliant writer -- Monty Don * OBSERVER * It is THE gardening classic, as essential to every gardener as a sharp pair of secateurs or a good spade -- Carol Klein Christopher Lloyd taught us that we don't necessarily have to do things very differently - just better, and with all our heart * SPECTATOR * Christopher Lloyd ranks with Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West as one of the major figures in twentieth-century British gardening * THE TIMES * He was the best informed, liveliest and most innovative gardening writer of our times * GUARDIAN *