Beth Chatto's Damp Garden : Moisture-Loving Plants for Year-Round Interest

by Beth Chatto, photography by Steven Wooster

• ISBN13: 9781844030453
• ISBN10: 1844030458
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-05-28
• Publisher: Cassell Illustrated

Summary

Beth Chatto's classic volume, newly revised, updated, and magnificently illustrated with color photographs, provides expert advice on cultivating every conceivable type of damp garden, whether it has moist silt or sticky clay, whether it's sunny or shady, or whether you're starting from scratch or sprucing up an existing site. Chatto explains everything about preparation, drainage, laying the first shade bed, coping with weeds, mulching, developing water and bog gardens, and large-scale garden management. There's information about some of the hardiest plants, and some actual plans to use in designing, all with lists of flowers and shrubs arranged by season. An especially valuable A to Z of plants include perennials, bulbs, and rhizomes; a few bamboos; grasses; and ferns.

Author Biography

Beth Chatto runs her own Garden and Nursery for Unusual Plants at Elmstead Market near Colchester. Winner of ten Gold Medals at Chelsea, she also holds the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour and an honorary doctorate from Essex University. She is the author of a host of gardening classics: The Dry Garden, The Damp Garden, Beth Chatto's Garden Notebook, Beth Chatto's Green Tapestry and Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden. She is also co-author of Dear Friend and Gardener, written with her long-standing friend and fellow gardener, Christopher Lloyd.

Table of Contents

Preface	7	(2)
Introduction	9	(5)
Plan of the Beth Chatto Gardens	14	(3)
Starting from Scratch	17	(18)
Clearing the site	21	(1)
Soil preparation	22	(1)
Making paths and preparing to plant	23	(1)
The first Shade Bed	24	(11)
Beginning the Water Gardens	35	(14)
Painting the sky with trees	37	(1)
Planting at the water's edge	38	(5)
Weeds, water voles and other wildlife	43	(6)
The Shade Beds	49	(26)
Coping with weeds	62	(1)
Mulching	63	(2)
More planting in sun and shade	65	(10)
Developing the Water and Bog Gardens	75	(20)
Making another pond	75	(4)
The Canal Bed	79	(12)
The Taxodium Bed	91	(4)
The North--Facing Clay Bank	95	(18)
Creating more shade	96	(4)
Plants which tolerate heavy soil	100	(13)
Large--Scale Water Gardening	113	(24)
Some trees and shrubs	114	(11)
Giant herbaceous plants	125	(8)
Maintenance of large, damp areas	133	(4)
Garden Management	137	(12)
Soil improvement and border renovation	138	(1)
The silt	138	(5)
The clay	143	(2)
Fertilizers	145	(1)
Soil treatment summary	146	(3)
The Homes of Some Hardy Garden Plants	149	(26)
Flood--meadows, marshes and swamps	152	(4)
Damp mountain meadows	156	(9)
Shade plants from summer--green forests of Europe, North America and Japan	165	(7)
Conifer forests	172	(3)
Garden Plans	175	(12)
Plan for the Swamp Garden	176	(2)
Plans for sunny damp beds	178	(4)
Plans for shady damp beds	182	(5)
Alphabetical List of Plants	187	(84)
Perennials, bulbs and rhizomes	189	(72)
A few bamboos	261	(1)
Some grasses and grass--like plants	262	(4)
Ferns	266	(5)
Classified Lists to help with garden planning	271	(8)
Further reading	279	(1)
Index	280	(8)
Acknowledgements	288