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

My father was responsible for the design and making of the Sunk Garden, originally lawn, then dug up for vegetables during the First World War, after which my father said ‘Now we can play’. The spoil was removed to fill in a pond on the other side of the garden.

The Sunk Garden is surrounded by the Barn Garden. The floor of the Sunk Garden is largely carpeted with a low mat of the New Zealand Acaena novae-zelandiae, whose developing burrs are bright carmine, in July, in contrast to the yellow flowers of self-sown bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus). About half of this floor is deliberately kept clear of plants.