Beneath the Surface – The Beth Chatto Symposium 2024

The Beth Chatto Education Trust announces Beneath the Surface – the third Beth Chatto Symposium, at The Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall, University of Essex, August 29 & 30, 2024.

Beneath the Surface – The Beth Chatto Symposium 2024 is exploring the subterranean world of soils to discuss many of the lesser-known factors that affect the way that we garden.

Research is increasingly discovering new information about this fascinating underground realm – and, to that end, the soil food web is becoming an important consideration for new approaches to gardening.

Julia Boulton, head of The Beth Chatto Education Trust (BCET) and granddaughter of the late Beth Chatto OBE, says: “Because of the importance of what’s going on beneath the surface, an understanding of this space is essential in order to address the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. The phrase ‘Beneath the Surface’ also refers to the need for us to look more closely and critically at everything we do within gardening and environmental practices.”

The Symposium, which is taking place at The Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall at the University of Essex’s Colchester campus from August 29 & 30, 2024, is also centring around three key strands. These are:

• Perceiving – new research into underexplored aspects of the natural and subterranean world, including fungi, plants, and bacteria

• Thinking – bigger-picture ideas about ecology, ecosystems, habitats, and the relationship between all the lifeforms within them

• Doing – practical ideas about ecological horticulture, discussions about methods and best practice, and takeaway tips for gardeners and designers

The Symposium’s two-day programme of lectures and discussions is being led by a varied line-up of more than 20 esteemed guest speakers and panellists from around the world.

The line-up includes (to name but a few) Merlin Sheldrake – biologist, speaker, and author of the international bestseller Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Alys Fowler – gardener, presenter and award-winning journalist, Nigel Dunnett, professor of planting design and urban horticulture at the University of Sheffield, and Darryl Moore – award-winning garden and landscape designer and writer.

Moore, who has been helping the BCET organise the Symposium, says: “The realm beneath the surface is mostly unseen but the actions of all of the different types of bacteria and fungi, as they live their lives, are essential for plants and the important functions they provide for the planet, from creating oxygen to cycling carbon, water and nitrogen … all of which are important for making it a habitable place for our species and most of the others we share it with.”

Julia adds: “The wealth of knowledge and experience the speakers are bringing to the Symposium is formidable. While each of them has a specialism, they are connected by their shared interests in ecology, plants, and the ways that we are interconnected with them.”

Beneath the Surface is following the resounding success of two previous Beth Chatto Symposiums – 2018’s Ecological Planting in the 21st Century and 2022’s Rewilding the Mind. Tickets for each of these events sold out and saw 500 delegates from a global, like-minded community network with one another and draw inspiration from the events’ dynamic programmes. This year’s Symposium is promising to do the same.

Beneath the Surface is including an optional third day of tours and talks on Saturday, August 31, at Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens in Elmstead Market near Colchester, Essex.

All proceeds from the Symposium are going to BCET. The charity was set up by Beth in 2015 when she was 91. The BCET offers a wide range of horticulture education opportunities to people of all ages.

Julia says: “The BCET is an educational charity striving to help make the world a better place. The Symposium helps us achieve this aim by providing an international platform for thought leaders in horticulture and ecology to share their expertise and discoveries.”

To purchase your Symposium tickets, or for more information, visit: https://www.bethchatto.co.uk/symposium/the-beth-chatto-symposium-2024/