All Hands Garden Group visit to Beth Chatto Garden

On Sept 15^th, we visited the famous Beth Chatto Garden in Essex by coach. Her famous Gravel Garden (see photo below), once a car park, was originally planted by Beth and her team as an experiment to test a range of drought-tolerant plants.  The garden is famous for the fact that it is never watered, despite being situated in one of the driest parts of the country and having naturally occurring, free-draining soil. But there is much more to see than this.

There are four other gardens a Water Garden, Woodland Garden, Reservoir Garden and the Scree Garden, all amazing contrasts, providing much needed shade on a beautifully sunny day.  As usual, we had a guided tour, in this case by the head gardener, Asa, who brought the whole project to life for us as well as answering any questions.