One of Britain's top horticulturalists has died at the age of 84.

Christopher Lloyd, who was renowned for his garden at Great Dixter, near Northiam, died on Friday in Hastings Hospital.

His great nephew and namesake said he suffered a stroke last week following a leg operation from which he never fully recovered.

Mr Lloyd said his great uncle was regarded as the pre-eminent plantsman among the horticultural community.

He said: "After the war, Christo established the garden at Dixter and over the past 50 years he built and developed it into the premier plantsman's garden.

"He devoted his lifetime to creating one of the most experimental, exciting and constantly changing gardens of our time."

For more than 40 years Mr Lloyd wrote a column in Country Life magazine and he was a regular contributor to The Guardian's gardening pages. He also wrote around 25 gardening books, the most famous of which is his classic, The Well Tempered Garden.

In 1998 he was awarded the OBE for his services to horticulture and he held the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal, the highest accolade the society can bestow.

After education at Rugby and King's College, Cambridge, Mr Lloyd studied horticulture at Wye College, part of Imperial College, near Ashford, Kent.

He set up a nursery for clematis and unusual plants at Great Dixter before becoming a writer and developing the garden.

He planted, cultivated and painstakingly tended the estate into one of the finest private gardens in the world.

More than 50,000 visitors flock there each year to admire the 15th Century half-timbered manor house which his parents bought in 1910 for £6,000 and where he was born in 1921.

The house, which sits in 57 acres near Hastings, contains one of the largest surviving timber-framed halls in the country.

Mr Lloyd's father Nathaniel worked with architect Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1910 to redesign the house, parts of which date back to 1460.

But he acquired his passion for gardening from his mother, Daisy Field.

One of his last acts was to launch a £3 million fundraising campaign to preserve the manor house and garden.

The estate will pass into the care of charitable trust, The Friends of Great Dixter.

Lloyd was the youngest of six children and outlived four brothers and a sister.

He never married.