Wildlife paradise

After

Before

Winding path

In December 2002 we moved from a small, beautiful garden in north London to what was basically an uncultivated, weed-strewn clay bog with a tarmac drive through it. We used existing hard landscaping and created a number of individual gardens. The 'cottage garden' was waterlogged sticky blue clay. We recycled tons of gravel and brown lava rock, designed six beds with winding paths and painted the white walls terracotta. We solved the water-logging by erecting guttering on the workshop and digging in loads of compost and manure. All but four of the plants, which we repositioned, were dead. We sowed thousands of seeds and planted hundreds of cuttings in two new greenhouses.

Our friends were so impressed with the gardens in the summer of 2004 that they persuaded us to enter Wisbech in Bloom Competition, which we won! Since then we have won the Wildlife Garden three times and done extremely well in six or seven other categories. We are both in our 60s and spend every minute we can outside – my husband, Graham, on his vegetable patch and I in the flowery bits. Most people downsize when they move at our age, but I think we need a bigger garden!

Margaret Rickard, Wisbech St Mary, Cambs

Graham in the veg patch