: Eden on Sea; Abigail Hughes visits a fairytale garden - open for just one day to the public.

Byline: Abigail Hughes

A RESIDENT toad the size of a dinner plate and regal Roman statues instead of gnomes? Not to mention a handkerchief tree, tennis court and trout-filled river. This is no ordinary garden.

Walk a little further to discover a 45 foot-long pergola crammed full of rambling roses, a terrapin pond and a collection of old-fashioned wheelbarrows each containing its own miniature garden world. It truly is the stuff of fairytales.

Welcome to the eccentrically named Fox Brush in Y Felinheli, home to Jenny and Brian Osborne and the proud recipient of Get Gardening's Garden of the Week title. Set amid three acres, the couple moved to the property 32 years ago when it was a sprawling wilderness.

The house and garden had stood derelict for two decades, explains Jenny. I knew nothing about gardening and didn't even want a large plot, but we were attracted to it because it was cheap.

``The grounds were so overgrown that it was only after they moved in that Fox Brush's secrets began to emerge. We discovered a wide river running through it which flows into the Menai Straits and is home to stoats, weasels, trout and eels. 300 years ago, when the property was used as a mill, sailing boats came up here to turn around.''

As Jenny was to discover, horticulture in the days before specialist garden centres and Charlie Dimmock were on hand to help, was not plain sailing.

``Initially I just grassed everywhere and made borders because it was low cost. Most of my plants came via mail order or from cuttings people gave me,'' she says. ``I am self-taught and record everything I have planted in a diary.

``My most unusual plant is one grown from seeds I brought back from Spain taken from what looked like a bean tree. It has fern-like leaves and no-one has been able to tell me what it is.''

Now with three bridges draped in roses and clematis crossing the river, a selection of unusual trees like a tulip tree, bearing flowers similar to giant yellow water lilies and a blaze of azaleas, hydrangeas and rhododendron bushes, Jenny's garden is blooming.

But that is not the end of the tale. For Fox Brush is also where Jenny's disabled daughter, Becky, spent her life.

``Becky suffered from a muscle-relaxing illness and died three years ago, aged 28,'' says Jenny. ``She adored the garden and we were very much joined by it.''

There are four old wheelbarrows containing miniature gardens made for her. One had an island surrounded by water with small fish, and she created tiny villages by adding cottages and planting mini trees, like alpines.

``During the last eight years of her life she was paralysed, but still spent a lot of time outside. She knew where all the animals hid and where the birds nested. She was a writer and sat making up stories in her head. The garden was something we did together and Becky had a lot of influence over its design.'' For a year after her daughter's death, Jenny avoided her garden.

``It was too painful at first, but while Becky was alive we entered a Royal Horticultural Society competition and were among the last 12 entrants before being eliminated.

``Last year, I felt the garden was back up to standard and re-entered the competition in Becky's memory with her original write-up and new photographs of the garden. This time we were among the last six competitors, so it was cause for celebration.''

Jenny believes people are attracted to her garden because it still retains a feel of the uncontrollable wilderness it once was.

``It's not a very tidy garden and visitors identify with it because we face constant problems,'' she says. ``I have no time to dead-head roses, and the river bank is eroding. When the river floods, we run around scooping fish off the tennis court.

``Places which are tended by professional gardeners are immaculate and that puts people off somehow because theyre so unobtainable.

``I enjoy TV gardening programmes like Gardeners' World, but garden makeovers frustrate me. They spend a lot of money, buying wonderful and expensive plants for people who are not really gardeners and probably won't fully understand their needs or appreciate them.''

It is not just her own plants Jenny is passionate about.

``If I'm shopping and I spot a withering or dying plant for sale, I take pity on it and buy it to nurture back to full health,'' she says. ``If I see a houseplant hidden away in a dark corner, I do feel sorry for it.''

Visit the Fox Brush fantasy for yourself. As part of the National Gardens Scheme, Jenny is opening her grounds to the public on Wednesday between 10am and 8.30pm. Admission costs pounds 1.50.

Get Gardening HTV, Friday, 2.40pm

CAPTION(S):

LABOUR OF LOVE: Jenny; Osborne, whose three acre garden on the Menai Strait has won Get Gardening's Garden of the Week title.