Most people understand a big distinction between living nature and the laws of nature – that is, organic growth and electromagnetism – and they do not reflect that in a garden as elsewhere the latter may underpin the former. Furthermore, the gardens of the last hundred years are for pleasure and relaxation, games and flowers, and not a place for public art. A big question follows from this: what, in our fragmenting culture, could communal expression achieve today, especially in an era driven by a runaway art market and fast change (not to mention toxic debt)? What beliefs command assent or, to shift to the public realm; which clients are brave enough to pay for a public park dedicated to a significant idea? My own experience in Italian and German parks is that to get any agreement on content is an uphill struggle, though very much worth trying.

It is much easier to experiment on oneself, and here I have been fortunate. My late wife Maggie and I started work on this garden around her family home in 1988 and slowly, area by area, it has grown into a landscape with about twenty areas dedicated to the fundamental units of the universe: a Black Hole Terrace for dining on in the summer months; a DNA Garden of the six senses; the Quark Walk; the Universe Cascade and so on. Each insight into deep nature, many of which are recent, becomes translated into nature and sculpture. Landform is my generic name for this genre that cuts across art, landscape, architecture and the customary categories, and there must be something like twenty-five of them throughout the garden. Some landforms refer to theories of folding and fractals, others (when they fail) to catastrophe theory. As every gardener knows, the dialogue with nature is always two-way and it pays to exploit the unintended consequences of nature's acts.

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