The Yin Yang Garden is a woodland garden which was initially designed by Andy Grant and created back in 2019 with the young people who came to volunteer at Lindengate during the Action for Youth, NCS programme.
Since then, it has evolved with Lindengate’s youth group, Green Volunteens. The woodland garden has been conceived around the two complementary principles of Chinese philosophy, the Yin and Yang. Chinese thought of five phases; metal, wood, water, fire and earth and the theory of becoming and attaining an independence with the world of nature and human events.
Yin is the symbol of earth, femaleness, darkness and passivity. The Yang is equated to heaven, light, maleness and activity. On the floor of the woodland garden the Yin and the Yang symbols are created using contrasting aggregates. The central symbol is nestled in willow trees. The sound of the branches swaying in the wind helps relax the mind and the body. Around the central space there is natural log seating with further seating spaces beyond the central area. The planting in the woodland garden includes native hedging, shade loving plants, wildflowers, grasses and in the Spring, there is a carpet of bluebells and wild daffodils. The Yin Yang garden will become the central garden for the young people’s education area that links to The Clare Foundation Nature Reserve and wildlife ponds.
