Beth Chatto Gardens

During one of the hottest summers the UK has had we were invited to Beth Chatto’s gardens near Colchester for a tour with Head Gardener David Ward.

David has been working at the gardens for 38 years, and worked alongside Beth and her husband as the gardens and nursery were established.

David and the team know all about planting with plants that can handle a dry and hot environment as they established a gravel garden (which is never watered) over 30 years ago.

All the gardens are developed and maintained using a few key principles:

• Right plant right place
• Soil preparation
• Good maintenance and mulching
• Cutting plants back in times of drought rather than watering

Gravel Garden

Famously planted on the site of the car park, the gravel garden includes drought resistant plants. Plants are watered once when they’re planted, and even in a heatwave never watered again.

There’s very few large foliage plants – in fact the biggest leaves are the Bergenias (which were looking relatively green despite the heatwave). Many of the plants chosen have grey or small leaves, or are thin-leaved grasses which tend to roll up in the heat to preserve moisture.

Some of the plants had been pruned back to handle the heat – all the foliage is removed but the root remains to re-grow next season.

Bulbs are some of the best drought-resistant plants as they’re underground in the summer heat and grow back in the cooler winter and spring months.

Sand garden

Hidden out of public view behind the gravel garden is a new experiment – a sand garden, with a bee pole encouraging pollinators to visit the garden.

Despite the hot summer, the sand garden is surviving (and was buzzing with bees), as water is held deep within the sand even if the top layer is dry.

Water gardens

Overlooking Beth Chatto’s house, the water gardens containing a series of ponds were a cool escape from the summer heat.

Huge Thalia dealbata were growing in the ponds, but the gardeners have found that the flowers trap pollinators, so were planning to remove the flowers but keep the foliage.

The water gardens area also contains plants that have adapted to live in cooler wetter areas such as Iris, Astilbe and Astrantia.

Woodland gardens: Shade loving plants

The woodland area catered for shade loving plant such as ferns and Thalictrum aquilegiifoliu, and even in August we spotted a few Lunaria seedheads.

If you want to see the planting design strategy of “right plant, right place” in action, and need some inspiration for plants in different areas of your garden a visit to Beth Chatto’s gardens should be on your list.

And they’ve got a brilliant nursery on site (also available for online orders) if you spot a plant that’s perfect for your garden.

Thanks to BALI and Beth Chatto Gardens for organising the tour.

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