Welcome to this website, based on over 35 years of gardening on the same site – a typical small suburban garden of a semi-detached 1970’s built house located in the northwest of England.

So why “An Experimental Garden”?

I suppose that the idea that a garden is designed and laid out once and for all was never one that appealed, despite the prevalence of garden make over articles, advice and shows that have become more and more commonplace.

This website aims to be a place to share some of those experiments; to share the garden journey that we have been on, and are still on, and to encourage others to see that a garden is not a static space.

When we arrived the garden was typical of the late 1970’s – a patch of grass, a rose bed surrounded by a crazy-paved path and a well established Prunus ‘Kanzan” in the bottom corner! Whilst it was clear that this needed to change there was never going to be a single solution that would last for the whole time that we were going to be here – however long that might be.

Initially the grass was kept, but following a number of wet summers when it was days before the grass dried sufficient to walk on, this was removed, the Prunus ‘Kazan’ is now a mature tree providing plenty of shade, occasionally too much, and some of the better stone from the crazy-paving has been repurposed as a small seating area under the cherry tree.

The soil is heavy clay with a high water table meaning that parts of the garden still flood when there is persistent rain but drains within a few hours and with the gravel can be walked on almost immediately.

Even though I have a background of just over 10 years working in the horticultural industry these 35 years have been an ongoing experiment – seeing what works and what doesn’t and experimenting with a range of projects and ideas that I will share as the website grows.