One thrifty woman explains how a spark of genius, some savvy spending and determination gave her the back garden she long desired
Joanne Mason-Henry and her council house garden (Collect/PA Real Life)
Empty beer bottles and shower curtains don’t usually make good bedfellows, unless they’re destined for the scrapheap. But Joanne Mason-Henry had other ideas.
The 53-year-old kitchen porter turned those items into unwitting tools for her Stoke-on-Trent council house garden makeover, turning a drab, lifeless patch of land into a vibrant and calming retreat. Her achievements are all the more exceptional given that she has arthritis and no gardening or DIY experience.
The mum invested nearly £750 in the makeover, crafting a haven that features an Indian sandstone patio, a substantial 8ft x 8ft garden shed and a wildlife-friendly pond. To minimise costs, she embraced inventive approaches such as repurposing empty beer bottles collected from a pub to form borders and adorning her shed’s interior with distinctive ornamental shower curtains.
Despite her lack of horticultural nous, Joanne revealed that her battle with arthritis meant she fashioned up a garden that required minimal upkeep, resulting in a limited number of plants.
“It’s changed how we live, because we never used to sit outside,” Joanne said. “I wanted my garden to be cheap and very, very, very low maintenance, because my health isn’t fantastic. If you look around you can get things for really cheap or free.”
Joanne Mason-Henry’s council house garden (Collect/PA Real Life)
When Joanne first moved into her semi-detached council house in 2016 with her sons Jude, now 18 and Noah, 14, she remembered the garden being “awful”. Her best efforts to rejuvenate the grass were usually thwarted by her seven-year-old spaniel Stan constantly digging up holes.
Fast forward to 2022 and Joanne decided to take matters into her own hands. She started by hiring a mini digger for £80 to level the ground, then purchased a 100m roll of membrane from Amazon for £50 to lay over the soil.
The boundary fence was next on her list, which was in a pitiful condition. After recoiling at the £700 repair quote from a professional, Joanne sought a cheaper solution.
She said: “I just bought two rolls of strong, bamboo sheeting which was about £30 a pack from The Range and attached it with flat metal wire. It’s been up three years now and we’ve had some really bad wind, but it hasn’t budged and still looks like it did when I put it up.”
Joanne Mason-Henry’s council house garden (Collect/PA Real Life)
Joanne then turned her attention to the patio, sprucing it up with large Indian sandstone slabs she bought from a friend for £100 – and there was a touching story behind this.
“There’s a bit of a story behind the patio because his wife was a really good friend of mine and she passed away through Covid so we couldn’t attend the funeral,” she shared. “I thought firstly, I can use these, and secondly, I’ve got a little bit of my friend in my garden.”
Joanne’s arthritis made it challenging for her to position the patio slabs. However, she persevered, explaining: “It was hard, but I just literally did a few slabs at a time and took my time doing it. I like it because it looks old and rustic.”
Next came the renowned beer bottles. Joanne fashioned a unique border using upcycled materials in shades of brown and green, reports the Express.
Joanne Mason-Henry’s old council house garden (Collect/PA Real Life)
“I was thinking what could I do that would be cheap and that would look pretty,” she wondered. “I don’t even know why I though of bottles, and everyone was saying, ‘You’re mental, they’re just going to break’.”
The Bleeding Wolf pub, where Joanne works, supplied the bottles at no cost. She prepared them by soaking off the labels in warm water, recalling: “I got a rubber mallet, made the hole big enough, popped the bottle in upside down and just malleted it in. None of them have broken.”
When it came to converting her garden into a verdant paradise, Joanne joked: “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I kill cactuses in the house! I’m not a gardener!”
Joanne chose potted bedding plants from her neighbourhood supermarket and used bark chippings as mulch, which turned out to be remarkably budget friendly. She said: “I just picked them up whenever I went to the supermarket and saw cheap plants, even when they were half dead and giving them away for like 10 pence, because they come back to life if you water them.”
Joanne’s thrifty nature led her to incorporate a £20 wildlife pond, fashioned from a large plastic container. It has since become a haven for frogs, snails, and flourishing aquatic plants. Her prudent spending enabled her to invest £300 in a garden shed, which she adorned with shower curtains displaying idyllic rural scenes and artificial ivy around the edges.
“I got the idea from a Facebook group and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s really good”, so I went on Amazon and picked my favourite one, Joanne said. “They’re dead cheap, like £20, and a really good way of making it look nice.”
Completing her garden’s transformation involved installing some “cheap solar lights” and revitalising a second-hand arbour she’d purchased from Facebook Marketplace for £100.
The garden today bears no resemblance to the neglected, worn-out space it was back in 2016. Joanne admitted the makeover had made her summers more enjoyable, adding: “We were never able to enjoy our garden before, even during the summer, when it was beautiful and hot. It’s beautiful now.”
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