{"id":68064,"date":"2016-04-15T04:35:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T02:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/the-beth-chatto-gardens-sweeping-into-pink\/"},"modified":"2016-04-15T04:35:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T02:35:09","slug":"the-beth-chatto-gardens-sweeping-into-pink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/the-beth-chatto-gardens-sweeping-into-pink\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beth Chatto Gardens – (S)weeping into Pink!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Beth Chatto Gardens – (S)weeping into Pink!<\/strong>
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\nImage by antonychammond (off4awhile)<\/a><\/i>
\nOne of the greats of British gardening, Beth Chatto OBE has entered the realm of national treasuredom. Plants-woman, designer, author, 10-time gold-medal winner at Chelsea, holder of the Royal Horticultural Society\u2019s Victoria Medal of Honour and, of course, the owner of the celebrated Beth Chatto Gardens at Elmstead Market, near Colchester, in Essex – her horticultural skills seem boundless. With the concept of \u201cright plant, right place\u201d \u2013 in other words, put a plant in conditions close to its natural habitat and it will thrive without help \u2013 running as a thread throughout her career, she has inspired a generation of gardeners to take their lead from nature. <\/p>\n

The garden has been the inspiration for many of her influential books, including The Dry Garden (1978), The Damp Garden (1992) and Beth Chatto\u2019s Gravel Garden (2000). It was created on land that was previously part of a fruit farm, owned by her late husband, Andrew, 14 years her senior, whom she married in 1943. \u201cWe met during the war,\u201d she says. \u201cI was a schoolgirl of about 17, considering going to college.\u201d <\/p>\n

A scholarly man, who died in 1999 after suffering from emphysema for 25 years, Andrew devoted much of his life to research into plant habitats. Chatto says it was he who inspired her interest in gardening and refers to him frequently, modestly deferring to his superior knowledge. \u201cHe\u2019s such an important influence in my life,\u201d she says. \u201cMy parents were keen, but they had a conventional garden, using mostly cultivars.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple lived initially in his parents\u2019 in Colchester, but in the late 1950s moved to a modernist house they\u2019d built on the edge of the farm \u2013 where Chatto still lives today. Even inside, the garden is a constant presence. Large windows frame views and vignettes of the planting on every side and invite a tapestry of textures, colours and shapes into the house. <\/p>\n

Chatto credits her husband almost entirely for her success. \u201cMy two daughters were teenagers before I began to think about making a business,\u201d she says. \u201cAndrew had looked after us and given me the security and freedom to experiment.\u201d Her husband\u2019s failing health and the trials of running a fruit farm concentrated her mind on developing the garden commercially, though what we see today took time to emerge. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first seven or eight years, much of the land was a wilderness,\u201d she recalls. Yet there were assets, too, not least a rare natural water source in the drought-prone east of Essex, where rainfall can be as little as 20in a year. \u201cThere were a few fine 300-year-old oaks and a spring-fed ditch ran through the hollow.\u201d Today, the ornamental gardens cover about five acres; a further 10 are occupied by the nursery, which opened in 1967, and working areas. <\/p>\n

Finding water was not the only challenge. \u201cThere was land that was so dry, the native weeds curled up and died. That eventually became my gravel garden,\u201d she says. This she created in 1991, on the site of a car park. Apart from watering in the young, drought-tolerant plants during the first year, she has never artificially irrigated it. <\/p>\n

Chatto has a knack for turning problem areas into an asset, and there are several distinct areas in the garden, each requiring a different approach. The large water gardens are dominated by a series of ponds surrounded by bog plants and swathes of lush grass. A long, shady walk runs parallel to one of the boundaries. Here, shade-tolerant planting \u2013 including ferns, tiarella and pulmonaria \u2013 carpet the ground beneath oaks and other specimen trees added by Chatto. By contrast, the gravel area is a mass of sun-loving perennials, with asters, rudbeckias and sedums glowing through hazy grasses. <\/p>\n

The garden may have started out to give pleasure to a family, but it has developed into a self-contained horticultural powerhouse, attracting visitors from all over the world \u2013 about 40,000 a year. \u201cIt\u2019s like sowing an acorn, which is my symbol,\u201d says Chatto. \u201cI have an acorn and an oak tree on a weather vane, which was a wonderful present from my staff.\u201d Incredibly, it is tended by only one full-time and four part-time gardeners and volunteers \u2013 many of whom are foreign students. Chatto remains resolutely hands-on and is keen to pass on the knowledge she has gained through experience.<\/p>\n

Chatto uses grasses brilliantly, and was doing so long before it became fashionable. She creates seemingly effortless but thoroughly satisfying combinations. Therein lies her genius \u2013 there may be others out there with an equal understanding of plants, but nobody else has her eye. Shape, scale, proportion, texture, colour \u2013 all are balanced with the skill of a plate-spinner. <\/p>\n

She also factors in horticultural considerations \u2013 how big a plant will get, how fast or slowly it will grow, what conditions it needs to thrive and how it is maintained. The result is a garden that works on every level \u2013 practical, horticultural and aesthetic \u2013 with layer upon layer of carefully placed plants, as enticing asmillefeuillepastry. It all seems entirely uncontrived, but, on closer inspection, one notices geometric lines and angles. The big picture is built up gradually, with small groupings of three or more plants forming a satisfying melange of verticals and horizontals, and fluffy and solid plants. \u201cI need the trees and shrubs to form a background, to paint the sky and lead the eye upwards towards the clouds,\u201d Chatto explains. \u201cThen one adds the embroidery, which I enjoy so much.\u201d Nothing is allowed to get out of hand, but stagnation is not an option, either. \u201cA garden is not a picture hanging on a wall,\u201d she says. \u201cIt changes not only from hour to hour, week to week or month to month, but from year to year.\u201d <\/p>\n

Chatto has certainly noticed the effects of climate change. Drought is nothing new in her part of the world, where (the past two years aside) there is sometimes no rain for up to 10 weeks in the summer. \u201cThe most interesting change is the lack of cold weather,\u201d she says. \u201cOnly 10 years ago, we had icicles hanging down, and when the children were little, they used to skate. Now we hardly have enough ice to bear a duck.\u201d From an article by Rachel de Thame<\/p>\n

Please visit www.bethchatto.co.uk\/<\/a> for further information about this inspirational gardener and garden.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis Big Seven<\/em> image was automatically curated and published with WP Robot<\/a> plugin – CLICK HERE<\/a> to learn more about WP Robot for WordPress<\/a> – a massive time and money saver.<\/p>\n

Visit the MyPE YouTube Channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beth Chatto Gardens – (S)weeping into Pink! Image by antonychammond (off4awhile) One of the greats of British gardening, Beth Chatto OBE has entered the realm of national treasuredom. Plants-woman, designer, author, 10-time gold-medal winner at Chelsea, holder of the Royal Horticultural Society\u2019s Victoria Medal of Honour and, of course, the owner of the celebrated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9014],"tags":[13271,13272,5802,3416,10687,12566],"class_list":{"0":"post-68064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-images","7":"tag-beth","8":"tag-chatto","9":"tag-gardens","10":"tag-into","11":"tag-pink","12":"tag-sweeping","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}