Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
DRUMROLL PLEASE...
The winners of our garden competition have been chosen – and it’s a couple who transformed a wild space with head-high nettles into this elegant oasis
Meet the winners of Weekend’s National Garden Competition
The night before the final judging in the Daily Mail National Garden Competition, Robert Bailey-Scott turned to his wife Claire and told her, ‘There’s nothing more we can do.’
Having meticulously swept, tidied and pruned their one-and-a-half-acre garden in Gosberton, Lincolnshire, all that was left was to wait for the judges’ final verdict. ‘We were on tenterhooks but we knew the garden was looking as good as possible,’ says Robert, 57, who’s a window cleaner. Claire, 43, a tax manager, was at work so it was Robert who showed the judges round.
He met Claire for lunch afterwards and instead of pulling sandwiches out of his bag, he produced the competition’s famous blue plaque and told her, ‘We’ve won!’ It was an emotional moment for both of them. ‘We love our garden, but to have it assessed by experts and to know they really liked it… that means a great deal to us,’ he says.
The judges were bowled over by Robert and Claire’s garden. ‘The whole space has a wonderfully relaxed, confident feel,’ says judge Hamish Webb, while head judge, renowned garden designer Tim Sharples, adds, ‘All the shortlisted gardens this year were of a very high standard, but this had such great balance – it was an absolute delight.’
Claire and Robert bought their Grade II listed farmhouse in 2007 and both the house and the garden needed a lot of work. The nettles were at head height and the grass came up to Robert’s waist – and then there were the 27 tons of hard core and eight tons of gravel that had to be removed from the site. Despite all these drawbacks, the couple could see that the garden was full of potential.
There were a few mature trees, including a beautiful mulberry, but otherwise the garden was empty. Claire and Robert began by planting a generous border, measuring 20m at its widest point, and once that was done they tackled the rest of the garden piece by piece.
‘We have no help in the garden – we’ve done everything ourselves,’ says Robert. ‘Every single plant here has been put in by us. Fortunately we had lots of plants from our last garden and we divided them and took cuttings to give us some plants to get started. We worked on the garden every weekend and during any spare time we had.’
The garden is divided into different areas. There is a shade garden, a latesummer border planted with vibrant oranges, yellows and red, a bog garden and an extensive vegetable garden. The wildlife pond, dug out by hand, attracts creatures including frogs, newts, toads and damselflies.
One part of the garden is given over to annual flowers. A mixture of corncockles, corn marigolds, poppies and cornflowers, it’s a magnificent sight in summer. Next to this meadow area is the orchard and six raised vegetable beds. This is Claire’s area of expertise. ‘I do the ornamental stuff and Claire does the fruit and veg,’ Robert explains.
The judges were particularly impressed by the precision with which Claire plants her vegetables. ‘If the seed packet says plant four inches apart, she gets out her ruler and measures four inches,’ Robert laughs. She grows a huge range of produce including currants, raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, celeriac, squashes, beans and tomatoes. Claire believes the health benefits of gardening are often overlooked and finds that tending her vegetable plot is a great way to de-stress. ‘Gardening seems to clear the mind and you sleep so well after being out in the garden,’ she says. The Bailey-Scotts open their garden one day a year for the National Garden Scheme charity and this summer almost 500 people visited it. ‘ There were so many visitors that we ran out of tea cups and plates, so we’ll spend part of our £2,000 winner’s cheque on more crockery,’ says Claire. Robert has plans to use some of the money on redeveloping a new area of the garden where a tree has recently come down.
These two most passionate of gardeners say that winning the competition doesn’t mean they will rest on their laurels. ‘Every autumn we go round and try to work out what we can do to improve the garden,’ says Robert. ‘We may be prizewinners now, but the garden won’t stand still. We can always do better.’
Constance Craig Smith Robert and Claire’s garden will be open under the National Garden Scheme on 26 July next year. For details, visit ngs.org.uk.