A perfect double act!
The owners of this stylish garden on the outskirts of Coventry have worked together for 35 years to produce an award-winning patch
Val and Roy Howells’ award-winning garden on the outskirts of Coventry is definitely a joint effort – and the result of a lot of hard work! “Roy’s the one with the green fingers,” Val says. “He does all the planting, but I have the ideas
and he helps me carry them out.” The partnership was so successful that they won a national newspaper garden competition two years ago.
Recent projects include drilling a piece of driftwood and planting up houseleeks (sempervivums) to create a focal point. Roy also converted a wire candle holder into an attractive hanging basket, so Val could add an ivy plant to tumble downwards. These finishing touches, like a simple pot of violas positioned on a garden table, focus the eye.
There are also lots of unusual plants and Val knows all their names. “If we see something a little different we try to make a home for it,” she explains.
They recently spotted a new shrub called Freylinia tropica at a nearby nursery. Its arching branches are covered in small, lilac flowers, and, at the moment, this tender shrub from South Africa and Zimbabwe is sitting on their patio along with a tender blue plumbago (P. auriculata). Both will have to go under cover in winter, along with countless other tender plants. Hardier exotic plants are often left in situ and fleeced before the winter chill descends.
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Many of them are chosen for their fabulous foliage and architectural shape. Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Rex', from Taiwan, has huge, lobed leaves that make a real statement. “It’s 10 years old now and eight feet high,” Val says, “and we keep debating whether to stop fleecing or not because it’s reputedly hardy, although we’re always worried about having a bad winter.”
They don’t bother to fleece their Chusan palm (Trachycarpus fortunei). “It has been in the garden about 18 years now; it’s now 12 feet high and it’s obviously quite hardy." The textured trunk and fan of narrow leaves makes a great winter feature and helps this garden shine in every season. Less hardy palms and bananas are wrapped up for winter.
One of the most popular areas is the shady Japanese garden and this is full of restful green foliage, lifted by glints of gold and the occasional white flower. There are two water features that provide bubbling water, which this hard-working couple like to listen to as they sit and have a gin and tonic in the evening. The black rectangular water feature links the eye with an equally dark statue of an Oriental lady and she’s surrounded by handsome ferns and a tastefully variegated hosta with
lime-splashed green leaves. The entrance is framed by two Japanese acers, one green and one red.
“The red acer got so large we were struggling to get down the path, even after we’d moved it over. Eventually we had to lift the canopy by removing the lower branches, and we've planted ferns underneath and added a smaller, potted Acer palmatum to fill the gap.”
More ghostly
There are also bamboos in this small Oriental garden and the black-stemmed Phyllostachys nigra is currently being contained in a slab-lined hole in the ground. The centrepiece is a West Himalayan birch or Betula jacquemontii, and the gleaming white trunk glows. The silvered fronds of a reddish black form of the painted lady fern, Athyrium nipponicum, make the pale trunk look even more ghostly.
The deciduous Japanese grass, Hakonechloa macra, curtsies over the path, although Val prefers to use the all-green form or the pure gold ‘All Gold’. In one area blue nepeta rubs shoulders with this golden grass to great effect. The golden foliage and violet-blue flowers of tradescantia ‘Blue and Gold’ add another splash of colour.
Choice trees provide the backbone, and the golden form of the golden Indian bean tree, Catalpa bignonioides ‘Aurea’, has a multistemmed, spreading shape along with vivid chartreuse foliage. This leafs up late, so the new foliage is at its best during early summer.
Thickly textured
Visitors also love a false acacia Robinia pseudoacacia 'Lace Lady'. “We bought this as a pot plant some 20 years ago, and now it’s a tree with twisted branches and curly foliage.”
The golden-leaved hosta ‘Sum and Substance’ also provides a splash of acid-yellow and the thickly textured, quilted leaves tolerate a brighter position than most hostas. “This will make a mound four feet across,” Val explains. “The snails are not too bad here and we grow lots of different hostas in the ground for their elegant foliage.”
There’s style and content aplenty here – Val and Roy make quite the double act!