Picture This: A Walk on the Wildside

The subject for Gardening Gone Wild's August Picture This competition is On the Road Again. It's given me the perfect excuse to select a photograph* I took whilst visiting Keith Wiley's amazing garden in Devon called Wildside at the beginning of July. Click on the image for a full screen view - heartily recommended :)

Keith came to give a talk to the University of Bath Gardening Club in January (which I blogged about here) and we were so blown away by his slideshow it was obvious that this garden, plus the previous one he developed at The Garden House should be the destination for the club's main summer field trip this year.

Despite the dull and rainy day, Wildside was a riot of colour. It's an extraordinary creation as the flat four acre site is in the process of being transformed by Keith into a multi-terrained garden with many different microclimates. He's then using his extensive plant knowledge gleaned over a lifetime to match the right plant to the right place, thus fulfilling his philosophy of filling the view with flowers. UK TV viewers may recognise this garden as it was featured in the Landscape Man series shown earlier this year.

For the ultimate in gardening road trips, do visit the other competition entries on display over at Gardening Gone Wild.

* = and to start to catch up with my backlog of garden visits to tell you about :)

Comments

  1. Wow, that's a gorgeous picture. It reminds me of the dry garden at the national botanic garden of Wales, which was one of the loveliest unkempt places I ever visited. And as the rain drips and the drizzle beads everything in my own sodden garden, I could wish for a bit of dryness. Gardeners, never satisfied!

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  2. Beautiful! It must have been wonderful to get to tour this lovely garden.

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  3. Looks like a great garden to visit. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Oh my! Oh my! What a wonderful spot! I love this picture, I am inspired by this garden. I am just now planning a whole re-vamping of my front yard and this is JUST how I would like it to look in essence. Thank you for this wonderfully inspiring post! It will really help me in my garden planning.

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  5. Greeeen with envy - I bought his book after reading your post and I just love the way he approaches planting, I am very much looking forward to reading about your visit to Wildside, and seeing your images.
    K

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  6. Love the picture and off to look for the book to put on Xmas list. We really ust go next yearramight

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  7. Look forward to hearing more and seeing more about your visit to Wildside VP. I was slightly peeved this year when we went to France via Portsmouth and not Plymouth:)

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  8. It's so beautiful. It makes me want to rip up my lawn and bring in a digger (preferably with Matthew Wilson at the wheel).

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  9. Great photo, it looks beautiful.

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  10. Hi everyone - thanks for your compliments and I'm glad you've found it an inspiring place.

    My congratulations to Mr McGregor's Daughter who won the Picture This category for August. I knew it would be a winner as soon as I saw it :)

    All Season's Gardener, John and healingmagichands - welcome, it's great to see you here :D

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