Welcome to this website, based on over 40 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 40 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.