Dear Friend and Gardener ─ Letters on Life and Gardening

In this exchange of personal letters two of Britain's leading gardeners - Christopher Lloyd and Beth Chatto - share their successes and failures, and learn from each other's experiences in their two very different gardens.

Beth Chatto (born 27/06/1923) is a plantswomen, gardener and writer. Whilst having no formal horticultural training, she was inspired by her parents' enthusiastic gardening, her husband's lifelong study of natural associations of plants, and friendship with the great plantsman and artist Sir Cedric Morris. She has won ten Gold Medals the Chelsea Flower Show and was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour (1987), the Lawrence Memorial Medal and an honorary doctorate from Essex University. She is the author of many books including her classics The Dry Garden (1978) and The Damp Garden (revised 2004) as well as Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden (2000) and Beth Chatto's Woodland Garden (2002). In 2002 she was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her services to horticulture. A keen advocate of organic gardening, she has lectured worldwide. Beth lives in Colchester in Essex.

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD was among the best informed, liveliest, most worthwhile gardening writers of our time and the author of a host of classics. He lived in Northiam, East Sussex and died in January 2006.