Wildside – through the seasons

An edit that follows Keith Wiley through the year – his remarkable spring garden with naturalising bulbs, the exuberant summer garden, the intense colours of autumn and the bare bones of winter.

Learn about how Keith has shaped and sculpted his land to create conditions that an extraordinary array of plants, how he uses and shapes trees to make microclimates, and about how he integrates so many plant species into a coherent artistic vision.

There is some overlap with Story of a Garden, but much also much new material. Available as one of our film recordings.

SUMMER

Keith explores a favourite maple glade and the perennials that grow here, moving on to look at dieramas, a genus that has done particularly well here, seeding itself around to abandon. He goes on to look at how moisture loving plants can survive through deep rooting, and then wider issues such as how he sculpts the landscape, so that there is a multiplicity of aspects, and a diversity of habitats.

All gardeners will be keen to learn about how he combines spring bulbs with late-emerging perennials, the summer pruning of perennials and how he combines grasses with perennials. Finally Keith explores the Courtyard garden and pergola, two of the more ‘conventional’ parts of Wildside

AUTUMN

Getting it right with perennials can involve some summer cut-backs, Keith following this up with discussing the impacts we then see in the autumn. He goes on to look at the silhouettes of the trunks of the trees he has growing at Wildside, and in general at how to make the most of the character of the trees he has, including shaping them. He also looks at the ways in which trees control the way we look at the places where they grow, for example encouraging us to think about viewing under tree canopies.

WINTER

Winter brings clarity, an opportunity for Keith to discuss how he has been shaping the ground, using paths to define beds to guide the visitor through the garden’s topography, and to reveal different soil depths, leading him on to talk about using coarse sand as growing medium. He lookks at recreating or capturing the essence of natural wild landscapes in the garden, stylising plantings to get emotional impact and using trees to create different atmospheres. There’s some footage of training standard wisterias, managing dieramas and some thoughts on distribution patterns for spring flowers.

SPRING

Keith enthuses about magnolias, hellebores, corydalis, trilliums, and in particular about how some of his choice spring flowers are actually naturalising, such as Narcissus cyclamineus and erythroniums. He also looks at cutting down and managing grasses, the importance of shapes in the design of the garden and how he works with different backdrops for the plants he grows, often quite surprising ones such as the scree created by digging into the loose shale underlying Wildside.