Beth Chatto's Woodland Garden

Book excerpt: Now in paperback, Beth Chatto takes us on a tour of her woodland garden, revealing a triumph of planting in dry shade. For gardeners who yearn for beauty in north-facing borders and in beds beneath shrubs and trees, this book offers a wealth of practical inspiration and a palette of over 500 plants adapted by nature to flourish in shade. Beth Chatto has an unrivalled knowledge of plants, combined with an artist's eye for colour, form and shape, and for over 40 years has led the way in showing gardeners that so-called problem areas should be seen as advantages. In this book she describes the transformation of a derelict site into a woodland garden full of life and vigour in every season where plants carpet the floor beneath green-lichened tree trunks and groups of shrubs create backgrounds for herbaceous plants and bulbs. Written in her engagingly personal style, and illustrated throughout with Steven Wooster's superb photographs, Beth Chatto's Woodland Garden shows how the 'trial' of planting in shade can be an opportunity that every gardener will want to emulate.