The September talk for the Grayshott Gardeners was a highly entertaining and informative talk by Matthew Biggs.  Matthew is a radio personality in the UK, best known for his appearances on the long running BBC Radio 4 programme Gardeners’ Question Time. He has been a professional gardener for over 25 years, since studying at Pershore College of Horticulture and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and has written over twenty books. 

The subject of his talk was about some of the great icons featured in his book ‘Lessons from Great Gardeners’.

The gardeners discussed were:

William Robinson, who hated the formal layout of gardens and is famous for his naturalistic style gardens.

Gertrude Jekyll who originally studied at the College of Art and brought art into the garden.

Ellen Wilmott whose very rich godmother gave her money enabling her to indulge her very expensive obsession of her gardens.

Beth Chatto OBE who was a sustainable gardener before her time although her husband Andrew Chatto played a big part behind the scenes in her success.

Roberto Burle Marx, a Brazilian abstract artist who took his art into the garden and played with different shapes and sizes in his designs.

Ganna Walska a Polish American who after marrying 6 times devoted her life to her operatic stage set gardens, selling $1m of her jewellery to finance her gardens.

Matthew was a very amusing speaker and Grayshott Gardeners hope he will visit again soon.