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Summary of our ‘Four Seasons’ garden achievements:

 

2006

Winner Walsall in Bloom large rear garden category

 

2007

Winner of the Daily Mail National Garden Competition

 

2010

Winner ‘Overall Gardener of the Year’ Garden News National Competition

BBC2 Gardeners’ World half-hour television ‘special’, showing our garden in all four seasons.

Featured in magazines in China ‘Floral Time’ and Holland 'Home and Garden'

 

2011

Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time feature

In one day, featured in five national newspapers: Daily Mail, Express, Sun, Mirror and Telegraph.

Romanian magazine ‘Adevarul’

BBC News photo gallery website “In pictures: Spectacular autumn colours in Walsall garden”

 

2012

Featured in National Geographic Traveler (China) magazine

 

2013

Garden featured in Great British Garden Revival, trees episode (BBC TV).

Featured in magazines Greece, Romania and New Zealand

 

2014

In one day, featured in Daily Mail, Times and Guardian national newspapers.

Featured in Russian magazine.

 

2015

6 January, ITV “Britain’s Best Back Gardens”. Ranked by Alan Titchmarsh as the winner of the TV episode: Impossible Gardens, by creating a showcase standard garden no matter the weather or season.

 

2016

Views of our garden photos on Flickr reach eleven million.

  

Thank you for looking visiting our Flickr site. We are aware that very many of you may not be Flickr members. We really hope you will share some of the enjoyment, drama and fun we have had in creating our garden and photographing it throughout the seasons.

 

We have always shared a passion for gardening. We wanted to create a garden to be used by the family and to be exciting in all four seasons. The garden we have created has been described by a visiting national judge as "a garden like no other!" In our planting scheme we enjoy bold contrast and vivid colours.

  

In addition to Flickr we also have a web site www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk.

  

Our ‘Four Seasons’ Garden

 

We are Marie and Tony. We married in the 1970s and since then have always shared a passion for gardening. In 1982 we moved to our present family home in Walsall, in the West Midlands, England, where we brought up our four children. Until we retired in October 2009 we had busy jobs: Marie was a transport planner and Tony was a doctor in General Practice. We named the garden we created ‘Four Seasons’.

 

In 2007 we were amazed and delighted that our garden was awarded first place, out of two thousand entrants, in the Daily Mail National Garden Competition.

 

During 2008 BBC Gardeners' World Television filmed our garden during all four seasons and broadcast a half-hour television feature in February 2010.

 

In 2010 we were honoured and delighted to be awarded another first place, this time in the "Overall Gardener of the Year" category of the UK Garden News Competition.

 

In 2008 we became members of the ngs (National Garden Scheme). Since 2006 we have welcomed more than 13,500 visitors to our garden open days. Most visitors were from the UK however we have also been honoured to receive garden visitors from thirty-two non UK countries. We are sincerely grateful to all our visitors for raising a total of more than £44,000 for our named charities, with by far the largest share going to the ngs.

 

We wanted to create a garden to be used by the family and to be exciting in all four seasons. We totally re-designed, re-landscaped and re-planted our garden without outside help and most of the work has been done since 1992. All but two of all the plants in our garden have been planted by us. We won the battle with weeds, laid a network of York stone paths, built a chalet store, summer house, large wooden oriental pagoda, smaller pagoda and created four water features, including a cascading 17 metre stream.

 

We have landscaped and created three completely different areas in our main garden. In late autumn 2011 the larger of the three areas which we call the "upper garden" was featured in five national newspapers. The "middle garden" contains the jungle, pagoda and a small stream. Whilst the "lower garden" has a woodland like features, an area for perennials and a much larger stream.

 

In addition to the main garden areas, during the period 2008 -2014 our neighbour kindly allowed us to use the lower part of his garden as an additional 'work area' for Four Seasons Garden.

 

The slightly-acid, clay soil in our garden has determined which plants are successful in our garden. We noticed which plants were succeeding e.g. azaleas, Japanese maples, ornamental conifers and other evergreens and to a large extent this has led to our current planting themes. In the main we have tried to choose plants that are suited to our soil and are hardy enough to withstand our unpredictable cold winters! However, as much as possible, we also decided to choose plants with interest in more than one season of the year e.g. azaleas have beautiful flowers in spring and often have lovely autumn foliage colours.

 

When we moved to our Walsall home and garden in1981, we found the ground was hard clay soil. To help break up the hard clay soil we spread a layer of gritty sand and then for more than 20 years we have repeatedly applied forest pine bark mulches. Now our top soil friable and much improved.

 

In planting, we especially contrast bold shapes and forms and the colours red, blue and yellow. In particular we use bright and bold evergreens as a backdrop for flowers. A jungle has been created, including ferns, palms, bamboos and banana plants. We find that timely pruning is the key to maintaining our garden.

 

We have a diverse range of spring flowers. In early spring, flowers include Tête-à-Tête daffodils, primulae and camellias and this is followed in April by erythroniums, tulips, pansies and scilla. In May there is a stunning array of azaleas together with the new growth of acers and conifers. Other May flowers include anemone blande and muscari. Colour continues in June with foxgloves, aliums, poppies and lilies of various sorts.

 

In summer the acers and conifers provide the backdrop to display the riot of colour in the upper garden from flowers including pelargonium, begonias and bedding plants. The perennials in the lower garden include astors, leucanthemum, agapanthus, crocosmia, thalictrum, helenium and phlox. The jungle becomes more exciting in summer. and children and adults love the mist and tropical bird sounds.

 

Autumn starts with the rich red colour of the Virginia creeper. This is quickly followed by the intense colour changes especially in the acers and azaleas. By late autumn the Japanese acer leaves have become become vibrant with scarlet and gold colours and they serve as “autumn flowers”.

 

In winter, we use the colour red in the form of photinia, the red oriental ornaments and the red acer Senkaki stems and contrast these against the blue and yellow conifers and bright yellow hollies. Lighting in the trees creates a magical atmosphere, especially when plants are draped in snow. Winter flowers surge through in February with snow drops, crocus, aconites, cyclamen, hellebores and early camellias. The colour white is accentuated by the multi-stemmed Betula Jaquemontii. Other tree barks, including acer griseum, snake bark maples and serrula, give winter interest.

 

Our Walsall house and gardens, including our small front garden, have a total area of ¼ acre (1010 m²).

 

Our rear garden includes the three main areas of our garden (i.e. upper, middle and lower garden areas) and in total measures just 935 m² (55 m x 17m). This rear garden is south-facing with a gentle downward slope towards the neighbouring Walsall arboretum area. Two other sides of our rear garden also have large trees in the neighbouring landscape.

 

Visitors to our garden and to our garden photos often have the impression that it is larger than it is. There are almost certainly a few different reasons for this. One reason is that our rear garden blends well on all sides into the surrounding neighbouring landscape. Furthermore, quite a large number of plants can be seen in our garden but we keep these plants from becoming overgrown or excessively large by careful pruning. We aim to keep plants in proportion with one another and strive to keep plants tidy and pleasing even after pruning. In summary we keep many plants to a relatively small size.

  

This is a link to a simplified garden plan which is on Flickr:

www.flickr.com/photos/fourseasonsgarden/7691743590/in/alb...

 

This is a more detailed garden plan: www.flickr.com/photos/fourseasonsgarden/5808466006/in/alb...

 

For our address and map showing how to find us, please see our website www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk.

 

This is a private garden which is open to the public on certain dates each year. However, having held 90 charity garden events since May 2006, we have decided we really must slow down!

 

This is a private garden, which has been opened to the public on various dates during the period 2006-2016, with all proceeds going to our named charities.

Charity Open Days - However, from January 2017 we are taking a break from holding very large public charity open days for at least a couple of years.

 

Since May 2006 we have welcomed more than 13,500 visitors to our garden open days.

 

We are sincerely grateful to them for raising over £44,000 for our named charities, with by far the largest share going to the National Garden Scheme.

 

As passionately as ever, we are still gardening and taking photographs of our garden in all seasons. To us, our garden seems more beautiful every year!

 

Nevertheless, from January 2017, we have decided to take a break from holding very large public charity open days for at least a couple of years. This is in order to have more time for us to write about our garden and also more time for family events, including helping to care for our two lovely young grandchildren.