Mum transforms 'awful' council house garden using old beer bottles and shower curtains

In a remarkable display of ingenuity, a mum suffering with arthritis has wowed her neighbours by transforming her "awful" council house garden into a stunning retreat using recycled beer bottles and shower curtains, all on a shoestring budget.

Joanne Mason-Henry, 53, a kitchen porter from Stoke-on-Trent, took on the challenge of converting the desolate space single-handedly, despite having no prior expertise in gardening or DIY projects.

The resourceful mother-of-four invested roughly £750 into the renovation, crafting an oasis that features an Indian sandstone patio, a substantial eight by eight-feet garden shed, and a nature-friendly wildlife pond.

In an effort to keep costs down, she embarked on inventive means such as repurposing empty beer bottles collected from a pub for creating boundaries and adorning her shed's walls with quirky, decorative shower curtains.

Acknowledging her lack of a green thumb, Joanne also revealed that the ongoing battle with her condition, which leaves her in constant joint pain, necessitated a garden demanding minimal upkeep, resulting in the sparse presence of plants.

Joanne, who shares her home with her two youngest sons, Jude, aged 17, and Noah, 13, shared with PA Real Life the transformative impact of the space: "It's changed how we live, because we never used to sit outside. I wanted my garden to be cheap and very, very, very low maintenance, because my health isn't fantastic."

Her thrifty approach is accompanied by a sound piece of advice for others: "If you look around you can get things for really cheap or free."

Reflecting on her initial encounter with the garden back in 2016 when she moved into her two-bedroom semi-detached council property, Joanne recalled the less-than-ideal starting point, citing it as "awful".

Despite her best efforts to restore life to the lawn, her beloved seven-year-old spaniel Stan would playfully thwart her progress by digging holes across her green.

In 2022, Joanne decided it was time to get her hands dirty and turn an empty plot into the garden of her dreams.

She began by levelling the land, renting a "mini digger" for £80. "Got that delivered. He gave me a five-minute tutorial on what to do and I was like right, let's do this," Joanne said.

"I just got on it and dug it up."

To prevent weeds, she bought a 100-metre roll of membrane from Amazon for £50 and laid it across the soil.

The fence between her and her neighbour was in disrepair, not simply requiring new panels but a complete fix. A professional job would have cost £700, out of Joanne's price range, so she improvised.

"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," she explained.

"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 also acquired a large Indian sandstone patio from a friend for £100. "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 said.

"I thought firstly, I can use these, and secondly, I've got a little bit of my friend in my garden."

Joanne, despite her arthritis making it tough to bend down, took on the hefty task of laying down slabs for her patio. "It was hard, but I just literally did a few slabs at a time and took my time doing it," she explained.

She's delighted with the result, saying, "I like it because it looks old and rustic."

After finishing the patio, Joanne crafted a unique border using recycled beer bottles in shades of brown and green. "I was thinking what could I do that would be cheap and that would look pretty," she mused.

Despite doubts from others - "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.

"I got a rubber mallet, made the hole big enough, popped the bottle in upside down and just malleted it in," she recounted. To her satisfaction, "None of them have broken."

When it came to greening up her garden, Joanne admitted, "I didn't have a clue what I was doing". Notoriously not green-fingered "I kill cactuses in the house, I'm not a gardener," she opted for an easier approach.

She chose potted "bedding plants" from the supermarket and used bark shavings as ground cover, which were a bargain. "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," she revealed.

Joanne's thrifty streak led her to add a £20 "wildlife pond", fashioned from a sizeable plastic container that has since become a haven for frogs, snails, and flourishing water plants, a generous gift to her garden.

She managed to save enough to justify a £300 expenditure on an eight-foot square garden shed, which she decked out with shower curtains featuring idyllic landscape scenes and artificial ivy placed symmetrically along the sides.

"I've put one on either side of my shed and they're beautiful," Joanne expressed her satisfaction.

Tracing the inspiration to a Facebook group revelation, Joanne remarked, "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."

Her pursuit of aesthetics didn't put a dent in her wallet as she noted, "They're dead cheap, like £20, and a really good way of making it look nice."

Completing her garden's transformation involved stringing up some "cheap solar lights" and revitalizing a second-hand arbour picked up from Facebook Marketplace for £100.

Reflecting on past times when the garden sat idle even in summer's inviting warmth, Joanne now marvels at its metamorphosis: "We were never able to enjoy our garden before, even during the summer, when it was beautiful and hot. It's beautiful now."