Owners of one of Britain’s most celebrated back gardens share the exciting four-decade journey of creating a colorful oasis containing thousands of flowers and trees exploding in a riot of dazzling reds, oranges, pinks, and yellows.
Tony Newton, 72, and his wife, Marie, 74, have spent 40 years crafting their spectacular garden in the industrial heartlands of the Black Country in Walsall, West Midlands County, England. The couple began tending to their vibrant quarter-acre plot shortly after moving to the property in 1982 and continued with their hobby after retiring in 2009.
Their garden now boasts more than 3,000 plants and flowers, including 450 azaleas, 120 Japanese maples, and 15 blue star junipers. They have also raised more than 52,000 pounds ($62,684) for charity by opening up their garden to thousands of visitors from across the globe over the last 22 years.
After attracting more than 15,000 visitors from 41 countries, the pair decided to throw open their garden gates in late October last year—for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic—giving people a glimpse of the garden bursting with beautiful autumn colors.
But it was also for the last time, as the green-thumbed couple now want to spend more time visiting their children and grandchildren who have moved overseas.
Now a grandmother of five, Marie says she and her husband will still enjoy their joint passion for gardening together but want fewer commitments, having now lived at the property for 40 years.
Marie, a former transport planner and nurse, said: “We have always been delighted to share our garden with everybody and we carry on gardening as passionately as ever. But we have five grandchildren now and our children are in different parts of the world, and we want to visit them.”
The couple has won several awards, including being crowned the winner of Alan Titchmarsh’s Britain’s Best Garden and Gardeners of the Year. They have opened up their garden publicly a total of 108 times.
“We had a person from New York who flew over especially just to see our garden,” Marie said. “One tourist from Iceland based his whole trip to the UK around it and our garden is part of a horticultural syllabus in China.”
The couple’s hard work dates back to the 1980s when the pair started working tirelessly to completely re-landscape the yard while individually planting trees, flowers, and shrubs. Over the years, they successfully transformed the muddy lawn into the Four Seasons oasis it is today—a name given because of its all-year-round appeal.
The garden also attracts all kinds of wildlife including foxes, hedgehogs, squirrels, lots of birds, and frogs.
Tony said: “Our garden is like an experience and sort of divided into three parts. The camera likes the upper garden for photos, but the atmosphere is quite different when you explore other parts of the garden.
“In the middle garden, it has an oriental feel and is more like a jungle. It has palm trees and a banana plant and bamboos. The lower garden has a larger stream and is more woodland-like and has white birch trees.
“Then the upper garden is more open and slightly more formal with a lawn in the middle.”
