Large gardens: 3 Andrew Lindley

Jul 23 2008 by Val Javin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE first that Andrew Lindley knew about the Garden of the Year competition was when he received a letter telling him he was one of our 15 finalists.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. He’d just dug up a patch of lawn in his garden at Paddock, the next phase of a development project which is on course to produce spectacular results.

What Andrew has already achieved in the extensive but steeply sloping garden at the home he shares with Paul Taylor, is remarkable.

But it was Paul who filled in the forms and had the photographs of the garden taken on Andrew’s behalf, convinced that his efforts were well worth sharing with a wider audience. And he was right. Paul is part of the creative team at award-winning K D Decoratives which builds stunning Christmas displays for some of the country’s biggest shopping areas. He has used his own formidable design skills on all the house’s soft furnishings.

In the garden, it is Andrew’s vision that has turned a difficult piece of terrain into an atmospheric garden with a delightfully informal feel. The planting is flowing and harmonious, the colour palette largely soft though with the occasional hint of bolder, hotter colours used sparingly for emphasis.

Both have worked hard to create an enviable garden within the larger scale plant structure of azaleas and rhododendrons which were in place when they began gardening in Paddock and which were probably part of the original planting schemes at this between the wars bungalow.

Andrew admits that he likes to recycle stone for use in the garden and is a great skip-watcher. The Belfast sink from the house has made a terrific pond.

Water lilies thrive in a pond higher up the garden as do frogs which seem to use the garden as a dormitory. A fox visits and the bird population includes a woodpecker.

Plans include extending the garden another 20 feet higher up the sloping ground and getting that once lawned patch into some kind of shape. The jury is out on quite how to tackle the area though somehow you suspect that Andrew’s quiet certainty will be see this developing garden through to its undoubtedly spectacular conclusion.