The gardens at Saling Hall compress into the relatively small space of 12 acres much of the tradition of the English country house, its park and pleasure grounds. They have been created in their present form over some eighty years, by two owners. For the past forty years Hugh and Judy Johnson have been restoring and enlarging the already admired work of Isabel Lady Carlyle, who moved to Saling in 1936. Recently they were described by the Director of the Garden Museum as the closest thing to an Elysian garden (in the manner of William Kent) of the 20th century.

Our contribution has been to maintain and adapt what we inherited, and to double its size by landscaping what was formerly a paddock and gravel pit, during World War II a camp and subsequently a poplar plantation. Since 1972 this has gradually become an arboretum with ponds and a temple. Now, in the 2010s, it is more of a woodland garden.