Horticulture Club! George blows £100k on gardens

During his heyday, he indulged himself in extravagant spending sprees, splashing out on 40 undershirts or 68 pairs of Ca Calvin Klein underpants, his mi mind fogged by marijuana, co cocaine or heroin.

But B not only has 1980s icon Boy george ge forsaken drugs, he has also, i ic can disclose, ditched his fixation with wit his Calvin Kleins in favour of a fresh fre obsession — a stunning £100,000 £10 revamp of the gardens at his £10 million pound, part gothic grade-ii gr listed mansion in London’s exclusive exc Hampstead.

grass g — and space of any kind — was wa in short supply at george’s childhood chi home in Eltham, South London, Lon where he and his parents and four brothers and one sister crammed cra into three bedrooms.

But B there are no such constraints in Hampstead where the singersongwriter son has merged two neighbouring properties to form his current home, which is dominated by a Hammer House Of Horrors tower and which now boasts a glazed extension.

Demonstrating that he’s blessed with chameleon fingers, 59-year-old Culture Club star george is turning his attention to the grounds.

He’s removing small ‘low quality’ trees and shrubs, and replacing them with ornamental versions, and inserting pleached trees and new hedging, as well introducing a mixture of perennials and ‘an evergreen backbone’. Boy george needed consent to re-landscape the gardens because the pad is listed and lies in a conservation area.

His planning agent says: ‘The proposals have been developed to provide a scheme sympathetic to the historic fabric and character of the property and to the broader conservation area.’

But the splendidly acerbic george, who once unforgettably summarised Madonna as ‘a living, breathing cash register’, ups his own spending in the rear garden, in which he is installing a hardwood deck and a chain of natural stone stepping-stones on the lawn.

guests can then join george at the must-have addition to any celebrity’s outside space — a ‘stepped water feature with reflection pool’. But viewing will definitely be for friends only: the addition of a new trellis to the rear garden’s boundary wall will see to that.