Beth Chatto

When I first started to garden my first influence when it came to the flower garden was my grandfather. His style was very much park bedding in a red, white and blue scheme made up of pelargoniums, white alyssum and blue lobelia. The first gardening book I ever bought was by Percy Thrower and it is no surprise that the bedding schemes in the book looked familiar.

We all have to start somewhere and I was lucky that I had someone who encouraged me and taught me basics without forcing the subject on me. However it is right that we should all adapt and develop our own style, our own likes and dislikes. I still grow pelargoniums, alyssum and lobelia but my garden has more variety and a very different style.

How did my style change and who were the gardeners I followed?

The two gardeners who were probably the first to catch my attention were Geoffrey Smith and Geoff Hamilton. If you have not heard Geoffrey Smith enthusing about plants and wildlife then you have missed out. His passion for the garden, countryside, wildlife and the environment described as only he can, cannot fail to inspire you. Next was Geoff Hamilton and I know I am not on my own in saying that he taught me that gardening is something that we can all do and that we should respect nature and the environment. There is one other thing that I should thank Geoff Hamilton for and that is introducing me to a lady gardener by the name of Beth Chatto.

When I saw pictures of Beth’s garden and then heard her speaking I was hooked, her style of gardening just seemed to hit the right note for me and that was backed up by her knowledge of plants and especially knowing the right plant for the right situation.

Who is Beth Chatto?

Beth Chatto is a plants-woman, gardener and writer. Whilst having no formal horticultural training, she was inspired by her parents’ enthusiastic gardening, her husband’s lifelong study of natural associations of plants and her friendship with the great plants-man and artist Sir Cedric Morris.

The Beth Chatto Gardens began at Elmstead Market, Essex in 1960. By applying the principles of ecological gardening, she transformed an overgrown area of wasteland into informal gardens that harmonise with the surrounding countryside. Complementing the gardens is a large nursery producing a wide range of unusual plants, which attracts thousands of visitors each year.

She has won ten Gold Medals at the Chelsea Flower Show and was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal of Honour (1987), the Lawrence Memorial Medal, and an honorary doctorate from Essex University.

In 2002 she was awarded the OBE for her services to horticulture in the Queen’s birthday honour list. A keen advocate of organic gardening, she has lectured worldwide.

The Gravel Garden

One of Beth Chatto’s great successes was transforming a grass car park in front of her house and nursery entrance into a beautiful and forward thinking gravel garden.

About three quarters of an acre of land was ploughed and the sub soil broken up which as you can imagine was very compacted after years of parking cars.

The top soil was found to be very shallow and beneath was found orange sand and gravel, hungry and dry. With low rainfall of 20 inches a year on average, this site could only support plants adapted by nature to drought.

The design that she envisaged was a dried-up river bed with the main path winding through the centre of an irregular rectangle, forming long curving borders on either side, with room island beds.

Home made compost, well-rotted farmyard manure and bought-in mushroom compost was spread thickly over the areas to be planted and then rotovated in and allowed to settle.

This preparation was necessary even for drought-tolerant plants as the area was not going to be irrigated. Plants would be given a good start but then must get their roots down and survive, or not.

A mulch of gravel spread over all the borders affords some protection to roots and bulbs and presents a good appearance since there are no hard edges to the borders; the plants advance and retreat like the tide with the ebb and flow of seasonal growth.

You may be reading this and thinking there is nothing special about this idea, that is, until I tell you that the project started in the winter of 1991 / 1992.

Many of us have benefited from the efforts of this forward think plants-woman, and many more will in the future if our gardens are affected as prophesised by the climate change scientists.

Beth Chatto, The Author

She is the author of many books including her classics, The Dry Garden (1978) and The Damp Garden (revised 2004) as well as Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden (2000) and Beth Chatto’s Woodland Garden (2002). An engaging exchange of letters with the late Christopher Lloyd, Dear Friend and Gardener, was published in 1998. Also she has produced gardening DVDs and videos.

Visit Beth Chatto Gardens

If you have the chance, why not visit the Beth Chatto gardens which are located in Colchester, Essex, you will not be disappointed.