Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
SO WHO WILL YOU BE ROOTING FOR?
Meet the green-fingered geniuses who’ve defied the British weather to create their very own slice of paradise – and land a place in the final of our garden competition this year
Britain’s most prestigious amateur gardening competition is now in its 24th year, and once again you entered in droves. The mild winter was a boon to gardeners and although spring may have been a bit on the soggy side, when summer finally arrived the nation’s gardens burst into life – and Weekend readers responded enthusiastically once more with almost 1,000 of you entering.
And what a diverse selection it was, from small but perfectly formed urban spaces to large gardens featuring ponds and sprawling borders. ‘The standard was especially high in 2016 – maybe the mild winter encouraged more people to be brave and put their gardens forward,’ says head judge Hamish Webb, who oversees the contest with garden designer Tim Sharples. ‘Whittling it down to Michael Blood, 80, is a retired dental ceramist. He lives in a semi- detached Edwardian property in Nottingham with his partner Malcolm Bescoby, 72, a retired council leisure officer. No one could describe Michael Blood and Malcolm Bescoby’s garden as low- key. With its statuary, ironwork, topiary and lush planting, it’s a f lamboyant and theatrical space, carefully designed to complement their house and to transport visitors – for a short time at least – back to Edwardian times and a more elegant, leisurely era.
When they first set eyes on the property 38 years ago, the garden was something of a disaster zone. ‘The grass was knee-high, there was barely anything else growing – just a solitary castor oil plant – and the whole area was littered with concrete and breezeblocks,’ Michael remembers. ‘Fortunately Malcolm and I are both passionate gardeners just four finalists was very tough, but in the end we chose the four gardens that really spoke to us, and reflected the character of their owners.’
Here CONSTANCE CRAIG SMITH profiles the four glorious gardens that made our shortlist. All will receive the famous blue plaque to put in their garden, while the winner, who will scoop £2,000, will be announced next month. So who would you choose? – I’ve been gardening since I was nine years old – so we weren’t too daunted by the challenge.’
The space is a fairly modest 20m x 9m (65ft x 30ft), but the clever design makes it feel much bigger. Because the garden slopes, Michael and Malcolm decided to terrace it, creating two levels that are united by elegant terracotta- coloured paving. Near the house is a wrought- iron dining table, surrounded by an oasis of greenery – yuccas, bananas, tree ferns, euonymus, hostas and ivy.
Terracotta pots planted with box balls line the stairs leading up to the second part of the garden, which has an immaculately maintained area of lawn, with a flower-filled Gothic stone font at its centre.
Their ornate white summerhouse, which looks like a mini version of the Brighton Pavilion, is actually where they house garden tools and the lawnmower. ‘We bought a very ordinary wooden summerhouse and then I designed moulding for the top, which a joiner fitted for us,’ Michael explains. ‘It took a bit of trial and error but it’s given us a very grand tool shed indeed!’
As well as being plantaholics – ‘we can’t pass a garden centre without buying something’ – Malcolm and Michael enjoy exploring reclamation yards and going to auctions, and have developed a keen eye for architectural features that will work in the garden. They built another summerhouse 30 years ago using 18th- century reclaimed bricks; it’s topped by a decorative band of stonework that came from an old church.
This summerhouse has a glass roof so it can be used to eat in even when it’s raining. ‘We’ve only eaten inside the main house twice since April,’ says Michael. ‘We’re out in the garden as often as possible.’
They’re both enthusiastic about bold foliage but also enjoy using bedding plants to create a dramatic effect. One side of the lawn is edged with a curving bed of frothy white begonias, while containers and borders are planted for summer with busy Lizzies and pelargoniums. ‘Bedding plants aren’t fashionable, but they’re disease-resistant, colourful and good value,’ explains Michael.
They’ve recently added 11 cypress trees. ‘We love the Italianate style, and cypresses give the garden just the right feel,’ says Michael. Other star plants are Himalayan lilac; the Indian bean tree, Catalpa bignonioides; a white brugmansia (angel’s trumpet);
LASHINGS OF ORNAMENTAL EDWARDIAN GLAMOUR
and the foxglove tree, Paulownia
tomentosa. Even after almost 40 years the garden continues to de - velop, and plans for next year include installing a fountain. As Michael says, ‘ Whatever its size, there’s always something new and different to be done in a garden.’ The first thing visitors notice when they step into Debbie Bell’s one-acre garden is the glorious view across Lyme Bay. ‘Everyone is struck by the sight of the sea – it’s hard to compete with this vista,’ she says.
Despite its beautiful setting, the south-facing garden came with a major disadvantage: a steep slope, which makes every journey from the house down to the bottom of the garden ‘quite hard work’, as Debbie admits. ‘There were already lovely shrubs and trees when I moved here six years ago, but the slope was definitely a challenge. I also wanted lots of cottage garden-style flowers, and I wasn’t sure how those sorts of plants would stand up to the sea gales and the salt spray.’
She began by marking out borders in the part of the garden nearest the house, and experimented with perennials such as irises, lupins, delphiniums and eryngiums. ‘I found that as the soil drains very well and there’s a micro-climate here, with hardly any frost, I can grow herbaceous perennials as well as Mediterranean plants like olives, palms and echiums without worrying about losing them in winter,’ Debbie says. ‘I’ve been incredibly lucky – plants just seem to love these conditions. Almost everything grows well.’
The area at the top of the garden is planted in soft swathes of pinks, whites and blues, but as you descend the colours become hotter – the fiery reds, oranges and purples of crocosmias, salvias, penstemons and heucheras. ‘There’s a lovely weeping copper beech here, planted by the previous owner, which provides a good focal point for the hot garden,’ Debbie says.
Further down the slope is a white garden, where dark green yews, clipped into pyramid shapes, contrast with a riot of highly scented white roses, stocks and sweet peas. Beyond that is a productive vegetable and fruit garden, the raised beds lined with lavender and topiarised box. At the bottom of the garden, beyond a treehouse and summerhouse, is a decked walkway and a bog garden planted with tree ferns and enormous clumps of hostas that’s also home to several huge magnolias. From here a gate takes you onto the cliff path and down to the beach.
‘I don’t like to see bare soil, so I’ve planted as densely as possible,’ says Debbie. She has help in the garden one day a week, but otherwise looks after it herself. ‘One of my time-saving tips is to weed intensively in April and May; you’ll have much less maintenance work to do for the rest of the year.’
Although Debbie doesn’t use her garden for her work as an artist, she describes her planting style as ‘painterly’ and finds inspiration in the landscape and plants all around her. ‘I’m very lucky to live in such a beautiful spot,’ she says. ‘It was important to me to make a garden that did it justice.’
NOW TURN THE PAGE FOR OUR TWO OTHER FINALISTS
Before she moved house 16 years ago, Melanie Adey Jones had been an intermittent gardener. ‘I enjoyed pottering around the garden, but I dabbled rather than throwing myself into it,’ she says. Her new garden, a boggy field measuring 30m x 15m (100ft x 50ft), was a daunting prospect for a relatively inexperienced gardener, but she was struck by the possibilities of the site and took on the project with relish. ‘I’ve put my heart and soul into this garden,’ she says fervently.
Melanie’s home is a listed 18thcentury barn, and she was determined to have a garden that would do the property justice. ‘I had to do the garden completely from scratch – it was just grass, with no features to work around. I love the area around the Italian Lakes, where there are some wonderful formal gardens, so I had the idea of creating an Italian- style garden, with a formal layout which would contain lots of exuberant planting.’
She began by drawing a rough sketch and then putting up trellis all along the boundary of the garden so she could plant climbers, which would screen her from her neighbours. ‘I wanted to divide the garden into distinct areas, so that the garden changes as you walk through it,’ she explains. ‘One of the first things I planted was box, so I could create the symmetrical lines I wanted.’
A paved area near the house is edged with trimmed box hedging and filled with urns planted in shades of blue, pink and purple – lavender, pelargoniums, trailing verbena and the mini petunias Calibrachoa, or million bells. To the side is a charming white gazebo, with a flower-filled urn at its centre.
Steps lead up to a white gravel path, with a pair of ornate iron gates taking you through into the next area. ‘The gates are a visual trick – I saw them in a funny little reclamation yard and had to have them. They don’t actually close but they give the illusion that one part of the garden is separate from the other,’ Melanie says. Beyond the gates, the circular lawn has a small fountain at its centre.
The third area has a rectangular lawn, and in early summer the pergolas and trellis are smothered in a mass of white and purple wisteria. Melanie has cleverly used obelisks and pergolas to give height to the garden, which adds to the formality of the layout while also giving the impression that the garden is bigger than it really is. ‘Height is so important – and all of these structures allow me to grow lots of climbers, like my favourite deep purple ‘Jackmanii’ clematis,’ she explains.
Apart from having some help in maintaining the lawn, Melanie does all the work in the garden herself. ‘I’m never happier than when I’m out here,’ she says. ‘I find gardening very therapeutic. I come out and deadhead the flowers every day; there’s something so soothing about it. I do sometimes wish I lived in a slightly warmer climate so I could grow a bigger range of plants, but apart from that there’s nothing I’d change about my garden. It’s an allconsuming passion for me.’