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

Annuals and tender bedding plants feature prominently throughout the gardens, but they are not often seen in obvious beds of their own and cut off from other features. The largest single area of bedding, is in the Solar garden, next to the old bay tree and facing the front of the house. It is backed by a swathe of white Japanese anemones. They flower from late July to mid-October and provide a suitable background for any coloured bedding I choose to plant in front of them, and this varies with every year. Bedding allows you the swiftest opportunities for experiment and, if it goes wrong, the defects can quickly be obliterated.

This bedding is changed twice or even three times a year. Summer flowering annuals may not last the season through, so we often replace them, in late summer, with michaelmas daisies or Korean chrysanthemums or other perennials that have been growing on in rows. Back-up areas are most important for gardening of this kind.