Which plants will survive and can I use grey water? Gardening as UK summers get drier

As parts of Beth Chatto’s visionary drought-tolerant gardens in Essex turn brown, the head gardener offers advice Her debut book, in 1978, was titled The Dry Garden.

Since then, the late Beth Chatto created a rich legacy with her expertise as a plantswoman and by setting up one of the oldest unwatered public gardens in England.

Once a car park but transformed in 1992 into an experiment to test what plants were drought-tolerant in Essex, the driest county in the UK, Chatto’s gravel gardens south of Clacton are being visibly tested this year.

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