Product Description

The story of how Beth Chatto created her gravel garden on 'possibly the driest, and the most windswept, piece of soil in England' has a message of hope for gardeners everywhere. At the outset she promised herself: 'This garden was not to be irrigated in times of drought. Once established the plants must fend for themselves or die.' The results, beautifully portrayed in Steven Wooster's specially commissioned photographs taken through the seasons, testify to the triumphant outcome of the adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #338405 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-30
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .2 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

From Amazon.com
The author of several gardening classics, including The Dry Garden and The Damp Garden, British horticulturist Beth Chatto has once again documented her gardening adventures in Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden. A woman with a true love of soil (no matter how temperamental) and plant life, Chatto set out to create a lovely, viable garden in her gravelly, sandy soil. The challenge to find flowers and shrubs that would survive and thrive in this dry environment became an eight-year experiment that resulted in a beautiful, original gravel garden ranging over three-quarters of an acre.

Chatto takes us through the process step by step, beginning with conceptualization. How can she turn a former parking lot into a prospering garden? She notes that

We all find a haze of bluebells beneath beeches, primroses on clay soil beneath oaks, or a damp meadow golden with buttercups more magical than anything we can create. However, in our gardens we look for more. We learn to make plant associations that extend the season, to create pictures worth living with throughout the year.

Season by season, year by year, Chatto records the planting and maintenance of her gravel garden, reveling in the fecundity and tenacity of nature. Her prose is clear, concise, and at times dryly academic. Readers who have a wide knowledge of botany and an understanding of the Latin names of plants will have a leg up on more casual gardeners. Filled with pictures by Steven Wooster, who has photographed many of Chatto's gardens, the book is a visual delight. The vibrant ruby petals of clematis leap off the page and you can almost feel the spiny green stalks of the Onopordum acanthium. --Dana Van Nest

Review
Beth Chatto combines, as well as anyone at work today and better than most, an eye for good plants, knowledge of their ways and a sensitivity when putting them together -- Ursula Buchan Spectator Beth Chatto has to be the plantswoman of the century because she knows how to please plants ... a desire to emulate these beautiful plantings should be enough to drive all serious gardeners to read the book -- Mary Keen Garden

About the Author
Beth Chatto (born 27/06/1923) is a plantswomen, 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 friendship with the great plantsman 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 plant nursery producing a wide range of unusual plants, which attracts thousands of visitors each year. She has won ten Gold Medals 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. 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 Christopher Lloyd, Dear Friend and Gardener, was published in 1998. In 2002 she was awarded the OBE for her services to horticulture. A keen advocate of organic gardening, she has lectured worldwide. To visit the Beth Chatto Gardens website click here Award-winning photographer Steven Wooster specializes in the photography of gardens and plants. He lives in London.