Beth Chatto's Plants and Gardens

Beth Chatto transformed an overgrown wasteland deemed unfit for fruit farming, into a series of informal gardens. As the conditions within the garden vary widely, five distinct areas have been created providing useful examples of working with nature to find the right plant for the right place:

• Gravel Garden - Showcasing drought-tolerant plants
• Scree Garden - A series of raised beds containing alpine plants
• Water Garden - A calming space full of lush foliage and rich colours
• Woodland Garden - Shade-loving plants under a canopy of oaks
• Reservoir Garden - An open area full of late season interest

Beth Chatto was born in 1923 to enthusiastic gardening parents. After working as a teacher she married the late Andrew Chatto in 1943. His lifelong interest in the origins of plants influenced the development of the Gardens and our use of plants to this day.

Following Andrew’s retirement, in 1960 the Chatto family built their new home on a wasteland that had been part of the Chatto fruit farm. The site presented many difficulties for starting a garden including low annual rainfall. It was to Andrew’s plant research that they turned.

Informed by his knowledge Beth selected plants for a series of Gardens that could thrive under the different conditions. Through gifts of seeds and cuttings a large collection of unusual plants and a good knowledge of propagation was acquired. Since the late fifties Beth Chatto had become involved in the Flower Club movement, lecturing, opening new clubs and demonstrating flower arranging. By 1967 the Flower Club members were an enthusiastic audience for unusual plants. Requests for catalogues followed and from a small hand typed sheet a mail order business and plant nursery was born.

In January 1975 “Unusual Plants” exhibited at the RHS Hall, Westminster, winning a Silver Medal and gaining the first press coverage. From 1977 Beth Chatto and her stand of “Unusual Plants” went on to win ten consecutive Gold Medals at RHS Chelsea. Beth Chatto’s first book, The Dry Garden, was published in 1978. She went on to publish eight books, lectured around the world and wrote articles for magazines, newspapers and online. Beth Chatto was able to get out into her beloved gardens fairly regularly on her electric scooter, chatting with staff and visitors, sharing her deep love and profound knowledge of planting, right up until she passed away on May 13th 2018.

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Stevie Wonder - Black Orchid.

Kate Carpenter: Kaleidoscope

Kate Carpenter's photographic work tells stories about family, memory and forgetting, blending metaphors in woodland landscapes with documentary, portrait and archival imagery. Much of it is rooted in her experience of caring for her grandmother, aunt and mother through the years of their dementia.

Her work has been exhibited in the UK and beyond, and has featured in various print and online publications, including her own recent photobook Kaleidoscope.

She has written of  Kaleidoscope:

"I am glad of the consolations of photography as I muddle my way through and reflect on what it all means for me. The very act of photography is an act of nostalgia; it has threaded its way down the generations of my family and is a homecoming of sorts. As for the other thread - of course, I wonder whether that is coming for me too. In response, I think, I’m drawn to the woods, to the uncanny, tangled fractals of the trees, where I can at once play with my fears and simultaneously keep them at bay.

Anticipating the losses and the forgetting to come, I photograph life in that house, in that home that we seek to keep happy for as long as we humanly can. With my mother’s blessing and companionship, I am exploring the family archive to tell a version of her story, and with it, a part of my own."

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Joni Mitchell - Little Green.

RHS Garden Hyde Hall

RHS Garden Hyde Hall is surely one of the finest gardens in the East of England, its location among rolling hills and fantastic panoramic views can often surprise the visitor to Essex. This 145-hectare (360-acre) estate is constantly evolving, as the gardening team strive to retain the original intimacy and charm of this horticultural gem, while at the same time aiming to restore much of the estate to its former rural glory, including its historic hedgerows and woodland.

Biodiversity has been embraced by the team, which is evident in the brown hare population that inhabits the site, along with the butterflies and birds that are abundant at Hyde Hall.

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Van Morrison - In The Garden.