"Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners is about the most exciting plants grown by Christopher Lloyd in his garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex. The great plantsman tells the story of his Exotic Garden, which has delighted, and sometimes shocked, summer visitors since it replaced the Edwardian rose garden nearly fifteen years ago. The rose garden, designed by Edward Lutyens, had remained unchanged for nearly eighty years. Then, in 1993, much to the horror of many establishment figures, Lloyd asked his newly appointed head gardener Fergus Garrett to eliminate the roses. 'The noise of tearing old rose roots as they were being exhumed', he writes, 'was music to my ears.' And then the fun began- the bold foliage of palms was combined with handsome cut-leaved sumach and arching New Zealand flax; statuesque cannas and bright dahlias, threaded with mauve verbena and infilled with annual climbers, added dazzling colour from June until the first frosts, and the whole feeling created was one of being wrapped in a voluptuous living community. For everyone who loves reading Christopher Lloyd, Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners is an unexpected bonus. His last and most adventurous w