The bungalow garden one man turned into a wonderland
For more than 25 years it has been one man’s labour of love. And this glorious garden, currently ablaze with dramatic autumn colours, is the stunning result. Full of British native trees, shrubs and conifers alongside rarer and more exotic species from Japan and South Africa, this unlikely horticultural gem is hidden in an out-of-the-way spot near Kingswinford, on the outskirts of industrial Dudley in the West Midlands.
It is the handiwork of John Massey, who starts work on the garden every day at 6.30am and often doesn’t finish until dark.
The 67-year-old, a retired nurseryman, says: ‘I gave up my five-daysa-week job for this seven-days-aweek job. I’m out there until at least nine at night in summer, and for pretty well every minute of available daylight in winter.’
Scattered through the three acres of informal borders, island beds and woodland dells are an abundance of rare plants as well as many familiar favourites including cyclamens, colchicums, crab apples and the fiery hues of liquidambar, euonymus and Japanese acers.
Designed as a ‘plantsman’s garden for all seasons’, the private plot, on the banks of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, features a pool, a rock garden, a bank of lewisias and a meadow of Anemone pavonina.
As a boy, John inherited a keen interest in gardening from his greenfingered grandfather and started this project with the initial aim of creating a ‘museum for hellebores’. Since then, he has fashioned a garden that is, as he says, ‘in bloom every day of the year’.
He has won dozens of awards,
including golds at the Chel-sea Flower Show and the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal of Honour, the highest accolade it bestows.
John says he was inspired by his friend, the late Princess Greta Sturdza, a Norwegian who established one of France’s finest gardens — Le Vasterival, in Normandy.
‘One of my most treasured trees was a gift from her — a gorgeous Prunus rufa, better known as a Himalayan cherry blossom. It’s simply stunning when it comes into bloom.’
John opens the garden to the public for charity on selected dates and receives visitors from all over the world.
‘People from as far away as Japan have given me some of my most unusual specimens. There’s always something to see. It’s a true four-season display.’