My Favourite Place: The Beth Cha o Gardens

Waterperry’s Head Gardener Pat Havers spends her days cultivating moist Oxfordshire loam, but when she finally got to The Beth Cha o Gardens, Essex, it was a revelation.

The Beth Chatto Gardens is a place that everyone has heard of but I'd never been. It’s not really on the beaten track from here, but at RHS Chelsea one year I was lucky enough to bump into Asa and Emily, who are the Head Gardener and the Nursery Manager there. We got on like a house on fire and we decided that we had to do exchange visits to each other’s gardens.

I had seen it all in the book, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so unique and beautiful. Around every corner there’s something different. It’s such a contrast. Waterperry is a typical estate garden, with views out across the fields, but Beth Chatto’s is inward-facing; all the beauty is contained within that space.

As you go in you have that iconic gravel garden that everyone knows so well. But in the heart of the garden there are lovely, cool pools of water, spanned by little bridges and surrounded by beautiful planting. I was surprised by how lovely and lush and green it was, it was not at all what I had anticipated. And the water is so relaxing, I could sit there for hours.

For me, it was just astonishing, I loved it. Waterperry has water meadows and the river floods regularly. But the dry, free-draining gravel and scree gardens seem to look good in every season. There’s so much you can take away; ideas to use at home and things that would work in the grass borders here.

I was lucky to have a behindthe-scenes tour of the nursery, greenhouses and propagation unit – it was all incredibly neat! All the plants they sell are grown on site, which is great as it means that if you see something that really appeals to you, you can buy it then and there!

Now I’ve found it, I like to go back regularly as it’s such a very friendly and welcoming garden. It took me a long time to get there but I feel very close to it now.