Product Description

One of the great gardeners of our time, Beth Chatto is renowned for both her use of unusual perennials and her mastery of difficult growing conditions. Her own garden, created from a virtual wasteland, is a symphony of form and texture. Now, Beth Chatto takes the reader on a personal tour of her garden. With the aid of250 color photos, she explains how the garden and her philosophy of gardening have developed over the years. Among her topics are: Principles of Planting, The Entrance Garden, The Open Walks, The Shade Garden, The Dry Garden, and The Reservoir Garden; supplementing the chapters are a helpful plant guide and glossary. Rooted in more than30 years' experience, Chatto's basic principle of planting is an easy one to follow: if you choose the plants that thrive naturally in the conditions in your garden, successful cultivation and harmonious planting are likely to follow. Beth Chatto is the author of Dear Friend and Gardener, Beth Chatto's Garden Notebook, The Dry Garden, The Damp Garden, and Plant Portraits.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1906337 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this instructively focused tour of Chatto's celebrated gardens in Essex, England, the author demonstrates her guiding principles. Chatto's vision of gardening is defined by two influences: plant ecology ("Plants have their preferences") and Japanese garden design ("Surprise elements are necessary; shock tactics are not"). Chatto's passion is the play of shape, line and textureAwhich color may or may not enhance. But even more important is the garden's ecology of soil, light and air. After years of tracing garden plants back to their parents in the wild, Chatto knows the preferred growing conditions for individual species of perennials. This knowledge orders her gardens into habitats and her book into chapters: "The Entrance Garden," "The Water Garden," "The Open Walks," "The Shade Garden," "The Dry Garden." Amid what seems a crowd of plants, each chapter spotlights one or two of Chatto's favorites, such as hellebores, waterside grasses, ferns, euphorbias and fritillarias. This feature, along with a plant guide at the end of the book (where useful lists of companion plants join individual plant profiles), accompanies the lush, abundant photographs. A welcome reprise of the 1989 British title, this revision will suit American gardens in zones 4-7.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
'I know of no more honest writer. She describes as she sees, imaginately but never over the top; always so as to make me murmur an echoing "this is as it is". Everything is from direct observation and experience. She is never woolly off the point. Beth Chatto knows how people think and behave and pinpoints our foibles and weaknesses with commnsense and understanding.' Christopher Lloyd

About the Author
Beth Chatto was born in Essex and has lived there ever since. She has written for most of the national press and gardening magazines, and has published several books, including The Dry Garden and The Damp Garden. Beth holds the Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society and in 1988 received an honourary doctorate from Essex University.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Idea book for experienced gardeners
Unlike many gardening books, this book assumes a solid knowledge of gardening and has chapters on various types of gardens(shade, dry, open walks etc.). I appreciate that that many of the plants are less well-known, making the AHS Encyclopedia a good book to keep nearby while you read this. Has some great ideas for both plant and design choices.

A masterful description of one woman's garden
This book has a similar philosophy and arrangement by cultural conditions as Penelope Hobhouse's Natural Planting. While Hobhouse looks to gardens around the (temperate, Western) world, this book is all based on Beth Chatto's garden. But that's enough, as these are the large and varied display gardens at her retail and commercial nursery. The gardens are set in Essex, an area of England with harsher conditions (drier year-round, with a cold winter) than most of the country, and thus more like that of much of North America. While the book doesn't have a big alphabetical plant reference in the back, Chatto does have a few pages on each of many of her favorite genera. All of Chatto's books are worth purchasing if they match your local conditions (e.g., The Damp Garden, The Dry Garden).
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