Inside the highly acclaimed garden pensioner spent 27 years transforming into oasis

Yahoo

29-06-2025

A PENSIONER has spent almost three decades transforming the land outside his bungalow into a spectacular oasis considered one of the finest private gardens in Britain.
Stunning pictures show John Massey's garden bursting with glorious summer colour – despite being on the edge of the industrial heartlands of Dudley in the Black Country.
The 76-year-old has spent 27 years perfecting to his labour of love which features 20,000 different plants, trees and shrubs across a ten-acre site.
The four-time Chelsea Flower Show gold medallist says he needs to lovingly nurture his plot eight hours a day, seven days a week to keep it looking beautiful all year round.
He even opens up his four seasons garden at his home in Kingswinford to the public to raise money for charity and has recently reached the incredible milestone of raising half a million pounds.
Mr Massey is considered one of the horticultural industry's most respected plantsmen and his tranquil oasis has been hailed as one of the best private gardens in the country.
Mr Massey's dad, Joe Massey, in 1998 at the beginning of the pool and rock garden (Image: Courtesy John Massey / SWNS) Since it began life as a patch of grass in 1998, the garden has evolved to feature UK trees and plants alongside rarer and more exotic species from Japan, South Africa and Turkey.
Mr Massey said: "The garden hasn't really been planned, it's just evolved over 27 years.
'We bigheadedly say we're a garden for every day of the year and that you would hopefully find something in flower every day you came.
'There's hundreds and thousands of different plants, we're all plant nutters and it's a full-time job looking after it.
'I usually get up at 7am and take the dogs out and I go around the garden all day from there.
"Then there's the last walk at night to check for snails and slugs, that's usually 10pm until 11pm.
"It really is an all-day thing. I started by the house and just moved out - and just kept going and going. I absolutely love it all."
Mr Massey, who has been in horticulture for 57 years, says it has since become so vast it now requires four people to help him maintain it.
His inspiration came from the late Princess Greta Sturdza, a Norwegian who established one of France's finest gardens — Le Vasterival, in Normandy.
Mr Massey, who was previously awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's highest honour the Victoria Medal of Honour, said: "I was privileged to meet the late princess Greta Sturdza, a Norwegian.
"We became sort of friends and she invited me over and had, in my mind, the greatest garden that I've ever seen.
"She taught me how to garden. Her big thing was transparency pruning, you prune every tree, shrub and conifer so it was its own sculpture in its own right."
The stunning garden has won gold at the Chelsea Flower Show four times (Image: Emma Trimble / SWNS) He inherited his love of gardening from his grandad but says he got into the industry by chance, with no formal horticulture training at all.
Mr Massey prides himself on creating an all-year-round green space, meaning that flowers and plants are always growing.
The site is open to the public every Saturday between February and December, for just £8 a ticket.
Since opening to the public in 2003, the garden has generated over £500,000 for charity.
Words by Olivia Warburton and Adam Dutton