Alan Chadwick: A Master Horticulturist


I have recently come to the work of Alan Chadwick, and have been enamoured by his philosophical, horticultural, and visionary insights. He never wrote a book, but his Biodynamic French Intensive system was conveyed through lectures and the accounts of his students that witnessed his exquisite, and bountiful gardens.

Alan Chadwick came from a wealthy aristocratic family in England, he studied at the finest horticultural schools in England and Europe and was also tutored, via his mother’s ties to some of the most prominent visionaries of the age, including Rudolf Steiner.

He was a dramatist and performed on the stage from the age of 21 (1930), following the war he joined a travelling drama troupe in South Africa. Later in life, he started to develop gardens and moved to the US in 1962 to begin a gardening project at the University Of California Santa Cruz.

Alan found his way of bridging classical horticulture with a holistic world view, he orates his insights with flair and draws upon history, philosophy, and the arts to articulate his knowledge.

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