'You could walk round it every day and always notice something new': A private tour of the garden of multiple Chelsea gold medallist John Massey

Anyone can create a pretty garden, full of flowers and colour, in spring and summer. It’s much more difficult to make a really satisfying display in autumn and winter, but the best of all gardens are those that are wonderful all through the year. You have to be a truly knowledgeable plantsman to create a thing of beauty that never ceases to bring delight — not only to yourself, but to critical visitors at every season. That is precisely what John Massey, VMH, nurseryman, plant breeder and multiple Chelsea Gold medallist has achieved in his own garden, next to his famous Ashwood Nurseries near Kidderminster in Worcestershire. ‘John’s Garden’ is one of the finest private gardens in the UK and, many would say, the best maintained.

Mr Massey’s parents hoped he would train to become a doctor, but, from an early age, plants were his great and only love. His father, a civil engineer, bought Ashwood Nursery in 1967 and Mr Massey started work there the very day after he left school. The business grew steadily and, in 1986, he was able to buy a small house next to the nursery that came with 10 acres of extra land. However, he did not begin to plant a garden there until 1998. It is incredible now to look at some of the enormous trees and realise that they have all been planted since that date. His inspiration came from two famous gardeners who had become friends of his — charismatic Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter in East Sussex and the formidable Princess Greta Sturdza of Le Vasterival in Normandy, France. Both were energetic and knowledgeable plant-lovers, and both were blessed with artistic sensibilities. Their influence is visible everywhere in John’s Garden today.

The soil here is a sandy loam, free draining, but also requiring irrigation in dry weather. Its pH is about six, which means that almost all plants grow well and happily. The main garden is long and narrow, but designed to give an impression of much greater space than its 2½ acres would suggest. Space management is all too often ignored by garden makers, but not in this plantsman’s paradise, where plants are displayed in borders large and small, within a fluid modern design. There is always so much to see in plantsmen’s gardens that, sometimes, they are nerdy and boring, but John’s Garden is bowl-me-over exciting because of the way he positions, cultivates and trains plants to create his artistic effects. There is no pause — not only does he walk through his garden every day of the year, but he also insists that it is possible to have something in flower on every one of those 365 days. What’s more, he insists that every bed or feature within the garden should stop you in your tracks.

Every detail in John’s Garden has been planned and brought to perfection. Large ornamental pots, planters and troughs are everywhere, bursting with plants of good colour and shape, together with architectural urns, seats, sculptures and ornaments. A large ceramic tub near the house is always filled with floating flowers. The nearby ruin garden is pure theatre, replanted twice a year. A selection of plants in pots, up to 25 or even 30 of them, is arranged and re-arranged in an ever-changing display that is reviewed and revised at least once a week. Mr Massey also knows how to intensify the garden by limbing up trees to lift their canopy. This draws the eye to their trunks, creates long views and frees up space for new plantings in new habitats.

The birds do well in John’s Garden. Along one side of the drive, in what might be called the front garden, is a fine collection of rowans, including berry-rich Sorbus pseudohupehensis ‘Pink Pagoda’, dark pink S. pseudovilmorinii ‘Eastern Promise’ and a rare, fastigiate cultivar with scarlet berries called S. Autumn Spire, closely related to our native mountain ash. Here, too, is a selection of crab apples: the best display, says Mr Massey, comes from Malus ‘Comtesse de Paris’, which has yellow fruits, although ‘Indian Summer’ lasts longer, well into the new year. The first winter waxwings do not starve.

Praise is often lavished on old box hedges that are clipped to imitate a cloud formation. Mr Massey shows us how to create this effect on the other side of the drive, by planting a line or two of holly plants on short stems of varying height, and pruning each into a neat lollipop. As they continue to grow and fill out, the individual spheres merge to create the appearance of evergreen cumulus clouds. The berries brighten the surface for many months through autumn and into winter.

Mr Massey’s sense of theatre extends to the leaf-colour of trees in autumn and, as a nursery-man, he knows which are the best cultivars to use. Acer rubrum ‘October Glory’ is spectacular, especially when contrasted with white-trunked birches — the form of Betula utilis subsp. jacquemontii known as ‘Doorenbos’. Named varieties of Liquidambar styraciflua, such as ‘Lane Roberts’ and ‘Worplesdon’, give a rich red display over many weeks. Some autumn colour effects are standalone, drop-dead statements of beauty that need no foil from other plantings. The autumn foliage of the ginkgo trees turns to uniform yellow — a rich pure colour untinged by other tints or shades; the sun seems to glow from every leaf. A fastigiate cultivar called ‘Blagon’ stands close to a ‘witch’s broom’ form of Metasequoia glyptostroboides named ‘Schirrmann’s Nordlicht’. Tall shrubs, including Rhus typhina Tiger Eyes, give a brilliant display of reds and oranges in October, shortly followed by another new cultivar, Radiance.

Autumn leaf-colour is everywhere among the garden’s deciduous shrubs. Cornus sericea ‘Hedgerows Gold’ adds red tints to its yellow variegation and C. alba Baton Rouge and ‘Kesselringii’, grown principally for their winter stems, also turn into wonderful hues. Autumn leaves and seeds are contrasted in the deciduous spindle bushes — heavy-fruiting Euonymus planipes ‘Sancho’ is joined by E. alatus f. ciliatodentatus, the leaves of which turn bright pink, as short-growing E. alatus ‘Compactus’ — so seldom seen in gardens — packs a tussle of scarlet leaves and orange seeds.

Many are the rare and curious plants that visiting plantsmen want to acquire. Berberis sieboldii is a small shrub with reliable autumn colour that few have ever seen before — and the same is true of the rare witch-hazel Hamamelis ‘Yamima’, probably a cross between a H. vernalis hybrid and H. intermedia. Other rare plants include a sweet-scented form of Hydrangea petiolaris found by Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones on Yakushima island in Japan and Aesculus hippocastanum ‘Monstrosa’, the ‘monstrous horse chestnut’, which is no more than 6ft high with curious, fasciated branches.

Underrated plants are only one joy of this extraordinary garden. You could walk round it every day, as Mr Massey does, and always notice something new. All is maintained by his ‘dream team’ of two full-time and three part-time gardeners, whose knowledge has been greatly enriched by working in John’s Garden.

John’s Garden and Ashwood Nursery, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, are both now part of a charitable foundation set up by John Massey. The nursery is open daily, and the garden every Saturday throughout the year, except in January.