Down a track deep in the Kentish countryside is the kind of landscape usually only encountered in literature. Sheep graze in the fields, kingfishers dart along the river where watercress grows and, sitting proud in a meadow, is a tiny, black-painted house. When Andy Salter first came here in 2014, it was a book that sprung to mind: Walden by Henry David Thoreau, about his quest for self-sufficiency while on a two-year sojourn in the 1840s in a cabin in the woods around Walden Pond in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Jason Ingram<\/figcaption><\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>
The possibility of making a garden was important to Andy, a special-effects artist, who had also fallen hard for horticulture. A working holiday on a farm in Japan had led to a course at Hadlow College in Kent and then, inspired by a tutor who sang Christopher Lloyd\u2019s praises, on to Great Dixter<\/a> where Andy volunteered under head gardener Fergus Garrett, sometimes for as many as four days a week, for four years. Read more about the garden below.<\/p>\n
$\""Andy\"$ <\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
\u00a9 Claire Takacs<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Andy Salter\u2019s house stands on a deck enveloped in planting. Beyond the fence, he has planted a wildflower meadow, which he hopes to expand.\nHe devotes October to mowing, having already established yellow rattle to weaken grass growth and allow other flowers to proliferate.<\/p>\n
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$\""Andy\"$ <\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
\u00a9 Claire Takacs<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Plants, shapes and colours are repeated to make a coherent whole. The red of Rosa<\/em> \u2018Florence Mary Morse\u2019 is echoed in ladybird poppies and, later, in Dahlia<\/em> \u2018Bishop of Llandaff\u2019, and the domed heads of Angelica archangelica are mirrored in the Euphorbia characias<\/em> subsp. wulfenii<\/em>. Stands of Miscanthus sinensis<\/em> var. condensatus<\/em> \u2018Cosmopolitan\u2019, Digitalis<\/em> and Thalictrum<\/em> \u2018Elin\u2019 add vertical interest.<\/p>\n
Discover Andy Salter\u2019s tips on how to recreate the Great Dixter border look and 12 key plants from the garden<\/a><\/em><\/h3>\n
$\""Andy\"$ <\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
\u00a9 Claire Takacs<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
Andy loves the contrast of the dark foliage of Sambucus nigra f<\/em>. porphyrophylla<\/em> \u2018Eva\u2019 with the white-flowered Persicaria<\/em> x fennica<\/em> (a combination also used at Great Dixter) and the lilac Knautia macedonica.<\/em> Cardoons and a golden-leaved Sambucus racemosa<\/em> \u2018Sutherland Gold\u2019 will grow to screen the house beyond.<\/p>\n
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