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

The Barn Garden has the merit of giving a good view across it wherever you may be standing. Visitors sometimes say ‘If I could have just one bit of your garden, it would be this’. But that leaves out the need for a back-up area to feed into it.

The fig trees against the far barn wall were a Lutyens touch which you meet on other properties where he worked. They are there for foliage effect and he used the many-fingered Brunswick fig as being one of the most decorative. The gardens are a veritable bird sanctuary, rich in suitable nesting sites for many species and the blackbirds are particular favourites, so it is no use being cross with them for enjoying fruit. Neither do I mind the magpies; they prevent a population explosion among the smaller birds. Green woodpeckers are a common sight.