This website is a celebration of empathy gardening. If you've never heard of this new kind of gardening, which has been sweeping the horticultural world in recent years, this is the best place to start. The origins of the empathy gardening movement are unclear, even mysterious. Some say it began in Sweden in the 1970s. Others believes it derives from a far older tradition of symbolic gardening in the Netherlands. But almost everyone agrees that empathy gardening did not become a mass phenomenon until it was popularised by Alex Walden in a series of radio broadcasts called Message to the Gardeners of England, which have become the inspiration for empathy gardeners across the globe. Although Walden has denied being the founder of empathy gardening, there is no doubt that he is its leading light.

So, what is empathy gardening? This completely new way of thinking about gardening is explained in Walden's first two Messages to the Gardeners of England. They show how empathy gardening grew out of a revival of symbolic garden design, an approach to planting which had been common in Europe until around 1700. Walden goes on to look at how people across Britain have, in the last few years, brought symbolic planting back into their gardens. This often takes the form of using plants which have long-established meanings that go back to ancient Greece and Rome, biblical texts, Renaissance art, Persian poetry, pagan ritual and the Victorian language of flowers. For instance, irises are a symbol of communication in Greek mythology because Iris was a messenger of the Gods, travelling between heaven and earth along the rainbow. In Victorian England garden chervil was a symbol of sincerity, and the elder bush represents compassion in the folklores of many countries.

Empathy gardeners tend to use plants whose meanings are associated with ideas of empathy, compassion and kindness. They may be intended to express empathy for loved ones, friends or strangers in distant lands. The main point of an empathy garden is to encourage people to see the world from the perspective of others and to promote mutual understanding between individuals and across cultures.

Empathy gardening is not just about symbolism. It's also about creating gardens in cooperation with others. One of the clearest statements on this appears in the Manifesto of the Swedish Empathy Gardening Association.

Examples of empathy garden planting schemes appear on our design ideas page and can also be found by following our selection of links to other websites.

We hope this site inspires you to give empathy gardening a try, and don't forget to look out for the forthcoming novel about empathy gardening by Roman Krznaric, called Message to the Gardeners of England. There are details on our publications page.