In the second film about plantswoman Beth Chatto, we hear of her simple childhood in Essex where her love of plants such as snowdrops and lily of the valley developed. After her marriage to fruit farmer and amateur ecologist, Andrew Chatto, two friendships inspire her.
Beth talks of her early days as a flower arranger encouraged by nurserywoman, Pamela Underwood, to exhibit at the RHS for the first time. But it is her meeting with artist and gardener, Sir Cedric Morris, at his home at Benton End in Suffolk that ignites her passion for species plants. As the family move to their new home on the fruit farm at Elmstead Market, Beth is finally able to realise her dream of creating a garden and nursery on the 8-acre site.
Although she claims not to have coined the phrase, ‘the right plant for the right place’, it does, she admits, sum up her gardening ethos perfectly.
Thanks to Beth Chatto, The Garden Museum and Catherine Horwood Barwise.
