Beth Chatto is one of the great 'names' of gardening. Her knowledge is rooted in over 35 year's practical experience, and she is celebrated for her use of unusual perennials, as well as her mastery of difficult growing conditions. Beth's beautiful Essex garden, created from wasteland in the mid-1960s, is a world-renowned site where an extraordinary range of plants is cultivated. In this book she explains how she has used different natural variations of the site to create widely differing habitats. Her rules of planting are not difficult to follow: select the plants that will thrive naturally in the conditions you have in your garden, and successful cultivation should follow!
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Editorial Reviews
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.
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
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Idea book for experienced gardeners,
By Donna M. (NJ United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Beth Chatto's Green Tapestry: Perennial Plants for Your Garden (Paperback)
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterful description of one woman's garden,
By
This review is from: Beth Chatto's Green Tapestry: Perennial Plants for Your Garden (Paperback)
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).
http://www.woodedpaths.blogspot.com/
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