Garden of the Week
Nothing daunts Julia Madgwick and Mike Ford in their quest to create a quirky tropical escape in heavy Nottinghamshire clay
When Julia Madgwick was told that she simply couldn’t grow exotic plants in her heavy clay soil ‘it was like a red rag to a bull,’ she says. And with the help of her builder husband Mike Ford, the couple have overcome a series of challenges to create this beautifully quirky, exotic escape over the past two decades.
It was the south-facing garden surrounding the house, with fine views over to Belvoir Castle, that first attracted them to Honeytrees in 1996. “After we’d addressed the house, which was empty and rundown, we turned our attention to the garden and discovered it was solid clay – teapot material,” says Julia. “We began clearing away the dilapidated pigsty, aviary and multitudes of weeds, kept some of the roses and fruit trees and put in a few different plants but without much direction.”
Then inspiration dawned following a visit to the exotic garden of the late Will Giles, who created his ‘subtropical garden in a temperate climate’ on a sloping, south-facing plot in Norwich.
“I was determined to turn my half-acre garden into a similar tropical paradise,” Judith says. “We were told it was impossible, and it certainly took a lot of effort to make the soil workable.”
They rotavated the soil, and cleared some of it into a mound in the front garden, into which they planted cannas, cordylines, hemerocallis and bananas.
They incorporated bulk loads of horse manure into the back garden beds – and continue to do so every year – topped with a compost mulch. “Now it’s beautiful soil; very rich and
moisture retentive,” Julia says.
The planting has evolved as they’ve extended their knowledge. “With each planting area, we tend to start with an architectural plant in the middle, such as a tetrapanax or alocasia, to give height and structure, then surround it with other plants with big leaves or tropical-coloured flowers, graduating the height down to ground level,” Julia explains.
Plenty of additional plants are grown in pots that they plunge into gaps to create a truly lush, tropical look. “I never want to see bare soil; it spoils the effect completely,” she says.
Greenhouses were essential in order to overwinter the more tender exotics, and they now have four, ‘with different names so we know which one we’re talking about!’, laughs Julia. ‘Pigsty’ is where the messy work is done, ‘Julia’s Room’ contains her potting bench and a glass dome houses a permanent display of plants together with a wood-burning stove. “It’s a great place to enjoy a bottle of wine in winter,” she says.
The dome took six weeks to construct after they bought it second-hand and collected it in pieces, with no instructions. “There were nine different sizes of glass and 11 different-sized metal struts, and they only fitted together one way!”