Christopher Lloyd, horticulturalist, 84

LOS ANGELES -- Christopher Lloyd, the popular horticulturalist whose chatty but authoritative writing filled some 20 books and made his long-running gardening column for the British publication Country Life a must read for gardening fans around the world, has died. He was 84.

Mr. Lloyd died Jan. 27 at a hospital in Hastings, England, of stoke complications, according to Tom Cooper, a longtime friend and a former editor of Horticulture Magazine.

A showman with a sense of humor and a penchant for dressing as colorfully as his five acres at Great Dixter House and Gardens in East Sussex, England, Mr. Lloyd is considered the last in an era.

''Christopher Lloyd comes from a long and glorious line of gardeners," Cooper told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. ''He held to the highest standards of traditional training and knowledge, but he had a forward-looking view about gardens."

Mr. Lloyd's traditional side was apparent when he referred to every plant by its Latin name, even in casual conversations. Less conventional was his riotous sense of color. ''I'm indulging my streak of vulgarity," he said, when visitors to Great Dixter asked about the purple, pink, and red combinations in his garden beds.

Two books in particular, ''In My Garden," (1993) an anthology of his magazine columns, and ''The Adventurous Gardener," (1985) a journal of his own planting experiments, point to his specialty.

He was a social gadfly who enjoyed meeting the busloads of tourists who came to see his gardens, which were often the subject of his writing. Some 40,000 annual visitors toured the grounds at Great Dixter House.

Mr. Lloyd was against preserving any garden for sentimental reasons. ''Don't just keep it because it's been there," he told his audiences.