Beth Chatto
Headline:
The artist at the heart of the garden
Synopsis:
It is a sharp and blustery sunny day, and Beth Chatto is at home near Colchester, Essex, looking out on a garden still seething with colour and vigour, even at this late stage in the year. Of all the 20th-century horticulturalists in England, she is perhaps one of the best known and most enduring. Her celebrated garden and nursery of 3,000 plants, her books, her international lectures, her medals (ten consecutive gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show) and, most treasured of all, her OBE received from the Prince of Wales in 2002, all testify to a life of rare achievement. The life is such that the Garden Museum in Lambeth, South London, is marking the opening of its new building with a retrospective of her life and work.
“Beth Chatto is England's most influential living gardener,” says Christopher Woodward, the director of the museum. “Her garden is as complex in its ideas and influences as any major work of art, music or literature.”
Chatto herself confesses to being a little uncomfortable at being the focus of attention. She is slim and alert, with peppery curls, a polished pumpkin face and a fruity air of plenty. When she smiles, about 50 of her 84 years disappear. She sits in a favourite armchair looking out on a sensuously beautiful garden. Opulent clusters of red, green and golden leaves rise and fall in a progression of shapes, following patterns of themes and repetitions. In the 1960s she carved this garden out of dull agricultural land. It took years to establish, and now she says her challenge is “to prevent it from becoming an old lady's garden”.
- Publish date:
- 19 November 2008
- Author:
- Joanna Pitman
- Source:
- The Times
- Media:
