I take a piece of natural landscape that I like and modify it to create a piece of garden

In 2004, Keith Wiley, former head gardener at The Garden House on the edge of Dartmoor, moved a very short distance to create an ambitious new garden. The f lat, four-acre site, once a cider orchard, is now home to the exciting, magnificent Wildside. Looking across the undulating landscape now teeming with plants, it’s hard to believe this was a nondescript field not so long ago. Over the past 15 years, Keith has hewn a garden out of the land, shifting thousands of tonnes of soil and shillet to make suitable habitats for a very diverse range of plants. He dug down to create lush pools, and built up banks to make free-draining mounds for bulbs and trees. “We get 60 inches of rain each year, so drainage is key,” Keith explains. “Even if the banks are small, it means plants aren’t standing in water during the winter.” An advantage of being the designer, builder, gardener and owner is that every part of the design has been considered in intimate detail over several years. Keith gestures to a path: “I might drop that path by four inches, then look at it and maybe drop it a few more inches – eventually you end up with the shapes you’re happy with. It’s an evolutionary design process.”

Much of the planting is influenced by natural landscapes and communities observed all over the world, though they are not direct copies. “I try to capture the essence,” says Keith. “I take a piece of natural landscape that I like and modify it to create a piece of garden, whereas most people try to make the garden look more natural.”