The pioneering plantswoman’s garden is a thing to marvel at. Here we explore the key areas of Beth Chatto’s gardens. Words Catherine Horwood, photographs Richard bloom

By Daisy Bowie-Sell

Published: Tuesday, 27 June 2023 at 12:00 am

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This year marks the centenary of Beth Chatto’s birth in what she called ‘the sticks of Essex’. But it was her garden at Elmstead Market, near Colchester, especially her experimental Gravel Garden, that brought her international acclaim. It’s a beautifully planted space that James Hitchmough, emeritus professor of Horticultural Ecology at the University of Sheffield, has described as “perhaps the most original British garden creation of the 20th century”.

Discover more about this garden and the other spaces at Beth Chatto’s Gardens below.

Read more about Beth Chatto’s influence on garden designers today.

Read our interview with Beth Chatto from 1997

The Gravel Garden

This most famous area of Beth’s garden was created in the 1990s on the half-acre site of the nursery’s former car park. It was inspired by a dried-up river bed she saw in New Zealand, and a visit to Dungeness, where by chance she met Derek Jarman and saw his garden at Prospect Cottage. The drought-tolerant planting may look like it’s growing directly out of the gravel, but it is, in fact, planted into the soil underneath. Beth dug over the compacted ground before adding compost to enrich the soil, and topped it off with a 4cm-deep mulch of sand and gravel. She was not trying to imitate a natural plant community or landscape, but creating a beautiful, low-input garden that would thrive year-round in the challenging Essex climate and conditions.

The Water Garden

Beth transformed a boggy hollow into this beautiful, calming space by digging out four ponds, inspired by the shape of a cloud formation. As well as those tranquil pools, the Water Garden features streams and bridges, and water-loving planting including waterlilies and gunnera, ferns, marsh marigolds and candelabra primulas. A path beneath the boundary-hugging oak trees is lined with interesting shade-tolerant plants, and is the perfect spot to watch the ducks swim by.

The Reservoir Garden

The Reservoir Garden, further along from the Water Garden, was redesigned a few years ago by the garden team. It features naturalistic planting in Beth’s style, with masses of colourful bulbs early in the year in spring and early summer, followed by tall, late-season perennials and grasses that hit their peak in late summer and autumn, and are left up over winter.

The Woodland Garden

Parts of the gardens were badly affected by the Great Storm of October 1987, but this gave Beth the opportunity to start over in this area and create the Woodland Garden. Beneath the shade cast by a copse of oak trees, there are swathes of spring bulbs, such as snowdrops, hellebores and daffodils, as well as rarer treasures including trilliums and erythroniums. Her experience of developing the Woodland Garden led to Beth writing her lauded book, The Shade Garden.

 

Read more about Beth Chatto’s enduring legacy

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