My Year as a Trainee at Beth Chatto Plants & Gardens

As the rains return at last the garden is giving a final burst of green before it turns ablaze in autumn colours. This turning marks the end of my traineeship at Beth Chatto where I’ve had a brilliant year gardening and propagating with the team. I take a moment to look back through the seasons and reflect on my time growing alongside this special garden.

Autumn

I arrived in the garden in autumn to the goldening shimmer of the Metasequoia glyptostroboides in the Water Garden, keen and eager to learn all I could about this garden. It’s known for being rooted in different ecological niches created for the pleasure of the gardener, but also for visitors and now for wildlife. Autumn planting season was in full swing and we were soon adding bulbs like Narcissus, Scilla and Tulipa sylvestris into the Woodland Garden and Reflection area to create a mosaic of colour in spring.

The cooler weather soon set in and we were lifting out Agaves from the Gravel Garden into the polytunnel to keep them warm and dry over winter. Giant parasol leaves of Gunnera manicata and G. tinctoria were cut down and turned into teepees to protect the fleshy dragon tongues of new growth. While the seed heads were disposed of safely in order to discourage seeding of this plant. 

Across the garden we began our yearly cut back of grasses and perennials, but using methods of “chop and drop”. Rather than taking all the material to the compost, cutting back plant material in small pieces and scattering over the ground. Soon it creates a beautifully patterned blanket of grasses, seed heads, and stems protecting the ground over winter. We also left leaves on the beds for mulching, created habitat piles of structural interest, and added woodier material to our building perimeter of dead hedges.

Working alongside Dan Pearson’s new masterplan for the garden we got started with renovating new borders. The first border situated between the Scree and Reservoir was becoming overcrowded with mature trees and shrubs, and it was an opportunity to open up new views down into the Water Garden. Slowly small changes like this will make the garden feel a part of a more cohesive vision as it enters into a new era.

Winter

December quickly arrived with early mornings before work spent de-icing the car and sprinklings of frost across the lawn. We mainly worked in the woodland cutting back ferns, hellebores and grasses, allowing the full display of bulbs in the New Year to take centre stage. We made wreaths out of foraged material in the garden for our doors and had a final Christmas celebration eating and drinking together before our two-week well deserved break.

We emerged from our cosy homes back to a snow dusted garden, although I must admit the 14th century uninsulated cottage I was renting was teetering on the edge of being liveable when temperatures outside plummeted to -10°C. I spent time in propagation getting the seeds ready for the season and clearing up the Sempervivum bowls which form a beautiful display in the Nursery in the summer.

With the ground frozen hard, we took to winter pruning tasks. I cut back the Parthenocissus henryana to a framework, and we pruned three large Laurels down in the woodland to create a more attractive shape and let more light in. All this great woody material was used to make new dead hedges at the back of the woodland and habitat for wildlife. Scott shared his expert rose pruning skills with me and we cut back hard the vigorous Vitis vinifera ‘Spetchley Red’ on the Nursery fence.

The first signs of life were not long off and as the frost thawed and the torrent of rain set in for the next few months, we could find glimmers of white snowdrops beneath the leaf litter like glowing lanterns in the dark. Small magic moments of early spring emerged with Scott and Malin spotting an otter in the Reservoir, Kingfishers dancing swiftly by the ponds with their dazzling blue and orange coats, and robins and blackbirds following your every move as we dig in the damp earth.

Spring

Through a solid couple of months of rain it was beautiful watching the garden at Beth Chatto stripping off its winter coat stitch by stitch, an accelerated unravelling into spring. In the woodland the first flushes of snowdrops were tentative, until they swept through in full pleasure knowing they were the first ones out for the year. They were joined by rich purple hellebores and winter aconites with their sunny faces that kept us going through the wet weather. Then followed buttery Narcissus ‘Englander’, the frilly N. ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and starry flowers of N. ‘Pallidiflorus’, alongside the lipstick red of Trillium chloropetalum.

 

We set about three weeks of weeding in the gravel garden, deciding which self seeders we would allow to become poppies and towering Verbascums in the summer. We tested ourselves with Cathy’s tiny weed idents and soon were able to tell the difference between very small leaves and their potential impact on the garden’s display.

While in propagation I worked with Emily to sow lots of different seeds, including Miscanthus nepalensis, Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica, Francoa sochifolia, and Pelargonia crithmifolium. It was exciting to see the seeds germinate, prick them out later on and see them grow into some great plants.

We were invited as a team to help with the new planting at Benton End in Hadleigh joining James Horner, Sarah Byman and Sybille de Cussy. Benton End was the former home and art school of Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, and Cedric gifted a lot of plants to Beth and inspired her to make her garden at Elmstead Market. So it was brilliant to continue the friendship and support through a planting day as part of the revival of the garden. 

It was a season of visiting other gardens and I was lucky to join Åsa and Emily to help out at Beth’s stall at the Dixter Plant Fair, go to the Dixter Working Weekend and help the team at the Horniman Museum and Gardens with their annual Prairie cut back and habitat stakes. At Dixter Plant Fair we had really lovely weather and it was incredible to see Dixter packed with people and a blooming firework display of tulips, as well as meet some incredible nursery people. We were spoiled with good food cooked by Fergus and a chance to wander through the magic bluebell woods after we all packed up. After the winter wet it was a joy to feel the sunlight return and to hang out with lots of gardening friends.

Summer

Yet just as late spring was settling in, summer stormed in and soon we were in a series of heatwaves and droughts, which we didn’t emerge from until the end of August. In early summer there was lots still to catch up on; weeding the Gravel Garden, Arums to pull out before their red flames set seed, seedlings to be pricked out, groundcovers to be Chelsea chopped, and seeding poppies and foxgloves to be cut to the ground. Our days were cut in half; the first out in the sun in the early morning light to get jobs done before the sweltering heat hit. Then we sought the shade, which the garden is lucky to have in abundance.

After work I was also preparing plants for my Long Border at RHS Sandringham Flower Show, potting them on, sprucing them up, and preparing habitat piles. I was joined often by my partner Kit who helped me ferry plants around, test out layouts and combinations for the show. When we got back I would cool off in my local river, the water becoming a total tonic to the sweaty, hot days.

The plants were soon ready for the show, where the garden would highlight the role of drought tolerant planting, but most importantly the role of gardeners in adapting to climate changes. Designed as if the gardeners had simply gone on their tea break I had tools poking up through the grasses, a table set for tea and cake, seed packets ready to sow. To plant the garden I was joined by brilliant gardeners Cathy Butcher, Miya Okabe, Charlotte Waters and Caroline Colino with some great help from my partner and parents.

The border was awarded a Gold Medal and it was a great opportunity to chat to members of the public experiencing hose pipe bans about the beauty of drought tolerant planting, and how to create and really care for these spaces. I couldn’t have done it without the support of Beth Chatto, Niwaki who donated tools, Essex Gardens Trust and Suffolk Gardens Trust with their funding.

After a few days off enjoying the show, I was soon back in the garden, now late summer, but there was not too much we wanted to do or interfere with the plants. We stopped ourselves cutting browning material, hoping it might keep the plant a little more protected and not to disturb the very dry soil. Instead we observed what plants were doing, and made plans for the next year. August became like January does, a quiet moment of reflection when dormancy has set in, where we would hope life would return once again.

Of course it did at the Beth Chatto Symposium, where the rains poured down on the Saturday we had a series of workshops and talks in the garden. The Beth Chatto team worked really well together to welcome so many visitors, and to provide some really inspirational talks, a vibrant pub quiz, a party in the garden and a day of workshops. It was so lovely being able to meet so many passionate horticulturalists and designers in the industry, and to be able to learn so much from the speakers about how we can collaboratively care for our ecological spaces. 

On the Intern weekend we welcomed back a wonderful group of gardeners for the day who have previously spent time with us in the garden. We spent time together on the stockbeds weeding, but most importantly chatting, having cake, coffee, hot dogs, and dinner together. It was a really lovely way to mark the end of my time, having arrived as an intern myself in May 2024 and now having completed my traineeship at this incredible garden.

 

Thank you so much to all the Garden team, Malin, Cathy and Scott and the rest of the team at Beth Chatto for having me.