Keith Wiley on experimental gardening and the need to take risks

People sometimes talk about having a passion for gardening, which generally means they like it a lot. But for true passion, few measure up to Keith Wiley. His garden, Wildside, on the fringes of Dartmoor, has been acclaimed as the most exciting and innovative in the UK. “We haven’t even begun to explore all of the possibilities for where gardening can go,” he declares, eyes glittering. “We’ve all done it in the same way, year after year, generation after generation.” At Wildside, however, he is determined to push the boundaries of an experimental ‘style’ of gardening – one inspired by close observation of nature, but with an understanding of form, a sense of narrative and a lyric intensity that lifts it on to an entirely different plane from more familiar forms of naturalist or otherwise gardening.

Over the past 14 years he has moved some 100,000 tonnes of rock and soil, three times over, to create the spectacular landscape that is Wildside – a labyrinth of serpentine paths and tree-clad hummocks, of ponds and canyons and shady groves – capturing the essence of a myriad habitats from damp Cornish valleys to the Temblor Mountains of California, from the flowering deserts of South Africa to the tumbledown barns of his Somerset childhood.

We haven’t even begun to explore all of the possibilities for where gardening can go. We’ve all done it in the same way, year after year, generation after generation

Keith describes that childhood as ‘feral’, roaming the countryside in search of birds’ nests, studying their habitats with a forensic exactness of observation. Most of us lose that ferocious power of concentration as we grow older, but Keith has retained it, noting the precise moment at which the movement of the sun gilds a curve of the land, or relishing the freckling of red in the shaggy bark of a pine. His father, too, was an ambitious garden-maker – always one for the grand gesture – but not so good at finishing a project, confides Keith. He has clearly inherited the bravura gene.

Following his training at Wye, in 1978 he was appointed head gardener for punctilious plantsman Lionel Fortescue at The Garden House. (The previous head gardener had quit, convinced, as were the garden’s trustees, that it was unviable.) Keith turned it around. By the 1990s, visitor numbers had soared from 200 a year to around 45,000, attracted by Keith’s bold new naturalistic plantings – glorious bulb and wildflower meadows, a cottage garden inspired by the landscapes of Crete, a mythic stone circle guarded by pink-stemmed birches, and above all a South African garden that spectacularly evoked the heat and dazzle of Namaqualand under the milky Devon skies.

We didn’t have enough money to buy a house. We had just enough to buy a field, and hoped we would get planning permission for a nursery and eventually a house

After 25 years of unstinting commitment at The Garden House, Keith came unexpectedly to loggerheads with the trustees and quit. On his 50th birthday, Keith found himself jobless, homeless and penniless. “We didn’t have enough money to buy a house. We had just enough to buy a field, and hoped we would get planning permission for a nursery and eventually a house.” And thus, on a flat, south-facing, four-acre field, just down the lane from The Garden House, began Wildside, which he set about transforming with a superhuman energy.

“The potential here is just massive,” says Keith. So charged is he, I half expect him to shoot up into the stratosphere. “I go to bed every night dreaming about the next day. I suppose you could call it obsession.”

It is impossible to speak of Keith Wiley without mentioning his late wife, Ros. They met at Wye, and were inseparable until her death in 2019. Another woman might have been grumpy at waiting 14 years for her house to be built. She might have objected to the 80-hour weeks at The Garden House, and the years of unpaid toil, at the lack of time for her own art (Ros was an accomplished painter), or the dearth of creature comforts. Instead, she was always unflinching in her support. At one point, Keith took a few steps into the well-paid international lecture circuit, but he found it too lonely without Ros at his side, unwilling to explore new lands and lay down new memories unless he could share them with her. She couldn’t go with him; there were 40,000 plants to be tended.

The potential here is just massive. I go to bed every night dreaming about the next day. I suppose you could call it obsession

Today, Keith manages the garden himself – the nursery is now closed – and is still afire with new projects. He and Ros had planned to slow down slightly and spend their semi-retirements painting – she in pigments, he in plants – but for the past three years Keith has thrown himself into creating the South African-style Ros Wiley Tribute Garden that reflects Ros’s love of colour with its vibrant red, orange and yellow flowers set among silver sub-shrubs. It will open to the public in spring 2023 and Keith has been deeply touched by the many generous donations that have made its creation possible.

Useful information
Wildside Garden, Green Lane, Buckland Monachorum, Devon PL20 7NP. Tel 01822 855755, wileyatwildside.com
The garden opens on selected dates from April to October. See website for details.