The Green Tapestry - Hardcover

Chatto, Beth

4.2

5 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671670360 ISBN 13: 9780671670368

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1989

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Using her own garden as a framework, the author discusses principles of garden design and maintenance and offers cultivation and zoning information on a variety of plants

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From the Back Cover:

A GUIDE TO CHOOSING, GROWING AND GROUPING PERENNIAL PLANTS FOR ALL SITUATIONS, FROM DRY SUN TO DAMP SHADE

One of the great women gardeners of our time, Beth Chatto is celebrated for her use of unusual perennials and the way she groups them, as well as for her mastery of difficult situations, such as very dry or very wet conditions.

She chooses her plants for their foliage as much as for their flower colour. As a result her garden in Essex presents a uniquely harmonious picture throughout the growing season, its shape and structure provided by the contrasts in form and texture of the groupings of plants.

In 'The Green Tapestry', Beth Chatto takes the reader on a conducted tour of her garden and, with the help of more than 250 full-colour photographs and illustrations, she explains how the garden and philosophy of gardening have developed over the years. She demonstrates how she has used natural variations of the site to create widely differing habitats for the plants – a water garden, sunny open beds and borders, a dry gravelly Mediterranean-style garden and shady walks. Her basic rules of planting are simple – pick the plants that naturally thrive in the conditions that you have in your garden, and successful cultivation and harmony of planting are likely to follow.

Her knowledge of gardening is rooted in over thirty years' experience. The world-famous nursery she has established alongside her garden has consolidated her knowledge of plants and how they perform, and her skills as a plantswoman have been recognized by ten successive gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show.

"I know of no more honest writer. She describes as she sees, imaginatively 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 or off the point. Beth Chatto knows how people think and behave and pinpoints our foibles and weaknesses with commonsense and understanding."
CHRISTOPHER LLOYD

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