Pdf (read online) Dear Friend and Gardener: Letters on Life and Gardening

2. Dear Friend and Gardener: Letters on Life and Gardening

4. Description Excerpt from Dear Friend and Gardener: Letters on Life and Gardening This is a deeply personal and intimate book of letters between two of the most influential gardeners of all time. Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd were great friends, though their gardens and gardening styles seemed worlds apart. Christo (as he was known to his friends) was daring, sending sparks flying and pulses racing with clashing colours and swashbuckling combinations. Beth was far more considered, choosing plants perfectly adapted to her conditions, to create painterly, delicate and subtle combinations. Christo and Beth met over bergenias. Christo disliked them and made this clear in The Well-Tempered Garden. Beth thought they had been given short shrift, and so wrote a letter defending them. Christo wrote back 'Come to lunch'. Beth did, and they became friends, but neither changed their view on bergenias. The argument over what one called 'dull' and the other 'essential' continued for many years. Those of us that knew them well could see plenty of common ground. Christo never forced a plant to grow in the wrong place - that's one rule he couldn't break. Both believed that foliage was kind and should be considered more than flowers. Their planting played off contrasting textures and shapes. The importance of self-sowing and plants doing their own thing was valued by both, as was bolster and punctuation. They recognized the importance of moving the eye through planting. Both Beth and Christo had great mentors in their lives. Beth was deeply influenced by the artist Sir Cedric Morris, who gardened with his partner Arthur Lett- Haines at their Suffolk farmhouse Benton End. Here Beth's eyes opened up to a world where art and gardens came together.

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