Foliage Plants

Foliage Plants by Christopher Lloyd; 1st edition 1973; Collins St James’s Place, London

8vo; 15cm x 22cm; with colour and black and white illustrations; 224pp; slight tear at top of dust jacket on spine and edges are marked with imprint on back cover; green cloth hard cover with gold gilt title in black box on spine; slight foxing to closed book edges; good condition.

Inside the dust jacket: ‘In Foliage Plants, Christopher Lloyd develops ideas outlined in his Well-Tempered Garden, and seizes on a central problem in the art and pleasure of gardening. Namely, that mere flower power will make for a fine municipal park bed, but never a satisfying garden. If you neglect leaves, you will be disappointed.

This then is a book about leaves – what to look for in garden plants, what to avoid, leaves that will delight and those that will bore, leafage of all seasons, shapes, sizes, habits, textures, and colours. Writing with the skill and pleasure that so distinguishes the Well-Tempered Garden, Mr Lloyd discusses plants of all kinds, from shrubs to grasses – evergreen and decidious, perennials and annuals, hardy and tender – all worth growing for their foliage as well as their flowers. This book also explains, with sketches and plans, what can be done in different positions – shady border, open site, small walled garden.

It is a fascinating if neglected subject, and Christopher Lloyd is an ideal teacher. He entertains and stimulates. He makes us look at our gardens with new eyes and find for ourselves ways of making them more interesting and for more of the year’.

Full of good advice and acute observation, Christopher Lloyd is as entertaining now as when this book was first published in 1973. Lloyd writes: ‘it is an indisputible fact that appreciation of foliage comes at a later stage in our education, if it comes at all’.

Christopher ‘Christo’ Lloyd (1921-2006) was an English gardener and author.

In 1910, Lloyd’s father bought Great Dixter in East Sussex and asked the architect Edwin Lutyens to update the house and layout the structure of the garden. Lloyd learned gardening from his mother and as a child was introduced to Gertrude Jekyll. Lloyd lived at Great Dixter and created a superb garden famous for its innovative planting, bold colours and experimental style.

In 1979, Lloyd was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by the RHS.

Lloyd wrote numerous articles for various publications as well as several books.

The garden at Great Dixter is open to the public. It is run by a trust under the direction of Fergus Garrett who became head gardener at Dixter in 1991.

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