[1] Wisley was founded by Victorian businessman and RHS member George Ferguson Wilson,[4] who purchased a 60-acre (243,000 m²) site in 1878.

[2] He established the "Oakwood Experimental Garden"[5][6] on part of the site, where he attempted to "make difficult plants grow successfully".

Wilson died in 1902 and Oakwood (which was also known as Glebe Farm[7]) was purchased by Sir Thomas Hanbury,[8] the creator of the celebrated garden La Mortola on the Italian Riviera.

In addition to numerous formal and informal decorative gardens, several glasshouses and an extensive arboretum, it includes a trials field where new cultivars are assessed.

[12] In 2024 influential gardener Piet Oudolf redeveloped the two-acre space of his Glasshouse Landscape borders, first planned by him 20 years earlier, in a style more designed to mimic the natural world.