It’s 18 months since influential gardener Beth Chatto died at the ripe old age of 94 (proof once again that gardening is good for you). It all started in 1960 when she and her husband Andrew built a house on an unpromising corner of land on his fruit farm.
Beth Chatto’s garden covered an area of boggy ditches and scrubland and, as the garden is in one of the driest corners of the country, she became adept at choosing the right plants for the right place, an approach that is very much taken for granted now.
The woodland garden was created in the aftermath of the great storm of 1987 when many trees were blown down. Beth made a new garden with shade-loving plants to carpet the floor and groups of shrubs to create micro-climates for flowers and bulbs.
Her book “Beth Chatto’s Woodland Garden” has become a valuable resource to me when tackling difficult shady areas in London gardens.
Finding clover used as a ground cover in the woodland garden was something of a surprise. I’m so used to thinking of it as a weed it was lovely to see it used in this way.
Making a virtue of a more profound problem in her garden lead to Beth creating a gravel garden and a scree garden. She was determined to prove that by choosing the right plant it would not be necessary to water the garden.
Ahead of her time, once again, Beth chose plants that required minimal amounts of water that would thrive in her stony and poorly nourished soil. Another book, “Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden” documents the development of the garden. Many of the plants are of Mediterranean origin.
This book is slightly less useful in London gardens with heavy clay soil, but great for my parents gardening on almost pure gravel.
I visited on a blisteringly hot day in August (remember those?) and feeling somewhat parched I headed for the cafe. It was disappointing to see long queues for food and drink so I headed off to the nursery in a somewhat grumpy mood.
This is probably the best retail nursery I’ve ever seen. The plants were grouped according to the conditions they liked and displays showed how they could work together. So much more useful than putting plants in alphabetical order which makes no sense to anyone other than an untrained shop assistant who has no idea what they’re doing.
And if you can’t face a trek out to Colchester they have a really good online shop which I’ve used many times. It’s much better than other fancy online retailers with glossy websites and/or glossy catalogues, and usually quite a bit cheaper too.
Hats off to Julia Boulton for keeping up and developing her grandmother’s work.
The Beth Chatto Gardens - https://www.bethchatto.co.uk
Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden and Beth Chatto’s Woodland Garden are no longer in print but they have been replaced by Drought Resistant Planting and Beth Chatto’s Shade Garden, both still written by Beth Chatto.