{"id":593789,"date":"2026-08-15T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T06:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/593789\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T06:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T06:00:16","slug":"heartwarming-story-of-the-man-whose-heatwave-lawn-will-leave-you-green-with-envy-hes-just-lost-his-wife-of-50-years-and-has-had-six-new-hips-but-even-the-drought-hasnt-stopped-stuart-creating-per","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/593789\/","title":{"rendered":"Heartwarming story of the man whose heatwave lawn will leave you green with envy. He’s just lost his wife of 50 years and has had six new hips – but even the drought hasn’t stopped Stuart creating perfection. So how DOES he do it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The view<\/a> from above is extraordinary. While there are scorched gardens and tinder-dry fields as far as the eye can see, Stuart Grindle\u2019s lawn, in this little corner of Yorkshire, remains lush and lovely. And so dazzlingly green \u2013 as if God has been messing with the filter.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ll be getting hate mail if you use an aerial shot,\u2019 jokes the 83-year-old retired joiner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018It happened before. I think it was when\u00a0ITV<\/a> sent a drone up. My lawn was emerald green when everyone else\u2019s was brown. I had letters saying, \u201cWhy are you watering your lawn when there\u2019s a drought?\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

Good question: why is he?<\/p>\n

\u2018For starters, we don\u2019t have a hosepipe ban here at the moment,\u2019 Stuart points out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018And people want to look a bit closer at the pictures. You\u2019ll see I have four water butts. I\u2019m very water conscious. To be honest, I don\u2019t even like putting tap water on the lawn, the grass doesn\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

\u2018And when I do put the sprinkler on \u2013 I have a 360 degree one \u2013 I only have it on for ten or 15 minutes. Gardens don\u2019t want more. Grass wants to be damp, not wet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Where people get it wrong is that they put the sprinkler on and then go and watch\u00a0Coronation Street<\/a>. Your grass won\u2019t thank you for it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Stuart <\/p>\n

Stuart Grindle from Tickhill, Doncaster who has a competition winning garden that he is managing to keep luscious green in the heatwave<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The garden takes hours of work to maintain, by Stuart, pictured with his wife Anne in 2018<\/p>\n

\"Stuart <\/p>\n

Stuart confessed to spending up to 16 hours a day, and tens of thousands of pounds over the years, tending his lawn<\/p>\n

Besides, Stuart pays \u00a31,200 a year for his water: he\u2019s on a fixed rate. He had words with someone from Yorkshire Water over this last year, when there WAS a hosepipe ban.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018I said \u201cif I buy a three piece suite \u2013 a sofa and two chairs \u2013 from\u00a0John Lewis<\/a>, they won\u2019t send them to me and say \u201cyou can\u2019t sit in the chairs\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

Why am I here, on one of the hottest days of the year, sitting in Stuart\u2019s little oasis of a garden in Tickhill, Doncaster, doing little more than watching the grass grow (to be fair, it\u2019s mesmerising. And a little addictive)?<\/p>\n

Because when it comes to working out how to maintain England\u2019s green and pleasant land, Stuart is your man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is now nine years since Stuart won a competition to find Britain\u2019s best lawn. In 2017, his garden \u2013 his life\u2019s work \u2013 became a national talking point, an object both of lust and fascination.<\/p>\n

The man who confessed to spending up to 16 hours a day, and tens of thousands of pounds over the years, tending his lawn, who\u2019d been known to get down on his knees with kitchen scissors to perfect the edges, became an overnight sensation.<\/p>\n

Gardener\u2019s World sent a camera crew (\u2018my wife, Anne, was hoping for Monty Don, but she didn\u2019t get him\u2019) and a German newspaper sent a reporter to test the springiness underfoot.<\/p>\n

\u2018He arrived and said \u201cI\u2019ve brought you a present, Mr Grindle\u201d, but it was a garden gnome. I said, \u201cI\u2019ll find somewhere for it\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not a garden gnome man, then? \u2018I am not,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

The German reporter proudly showed him photographs of his lawn. Stuart was not impressed: \u2018It wanted digging up. It wanted a cultivator. I asked how often he cut it and he said \u201cquite regularly, at least once every two weeks\u201d. I was cutting mine twice a day at that point.\u2019<\/p>\n

Having agreed to open his lawn to the public, all proceeds to charity, Stuart (and the long-suffering Anne, who called herself a lawn-widow) found himself inundated with visitors.<\/p>\n

Then there were the weddings. One bride asked what it would cost her to have her wedding pictures taken on his lawn. He said \u201cit will cost you nowt, lass\u201d, and along came the wedding party.<\/p>\n

\u2018I did tell her she\u2019d have to take her shoes off because I can\u2019t have stilettos on my lawn,\u2019 he recalls. Happily for him (and the grass), she was happy to go barefoot.<\/p>\n

Of course, we all love looking at other people\u2019s lawns, particularly when our own have shrivelled up and died.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today we chat about singer Rod Stewart\u2019s lawn in Essex, which has been in the papers looking strikingly vivid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stuart would like to know what grass seed Rod uses (his own favourite is \u2018Bent\u2019, which is the stuff they use on golf greens, and is so fine you can\u2019t use it if there is any wind at all).<\/p>\n

\"Sir <\/p>\n

Sir Rod Stewart\u2019s Grade II-listed mansion has very green gardens despite the dry weather<\/p>\n

\"Sir <\/p>\n

Sir Rod’s mini golf course features a fairway, two bunkers and a lush putting green<\/p>\n

He tells me, however, that his mowing days are over. What wasn\u2019t reported at the time of his lawn-fame is that he\u2019d already had a double hip-replacement, after a lifelong battle with arthritis. He was diagnosed at the age of 28 and had his first hip replacement at 36.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s now had six new hips (\u2018they call them \u201crevisions\u201d after the first set’). He also has two new shoulders, and he walks with a stick. Even getting to the end of the garden is a struggle.<\/p>\n

Pushing a lawn-mower, even his beloved machine which cuts to 5mm? He hasn\u2019t done it for years. He can no longer get down on his knees for forensic examination, either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So how on earth is this garden still looking so splendid? This is partly down to his son Jonathan, who now lives with him, and who knows his way around a pair of pruning shears, but mostly because of his friend Dan, who tends the greens of a local golf course.<\/p>\n

\u2018He comes and does my garden for me. No charge,\u2019 Stuart says.\u00a0\u2018He does it because he\u2019s marvellous and because he knows what it means to me. I\u2019m the luckiest man in the world.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dan pops in most days. He\u2019s doing the edging at the moment, down on his knees, refusing tea. \u2018I direct operations,\u2019 says Stuart.<\/p>\n

Glen, the photographer who hung out of the upstairs bedroom window years ago, has come back to take the pictures today, and shows Stuart the old images on his phone.\u00a0He assesses them with the most critical eye on the planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018It was in better shape then,\u2019 he says of his grass, \u2018but it\u2019s not too bad now in comparison. But because we\u2019ve had this drought. We\u2019re in maintenance mode. It\u2019s just a case of keeping it alive.\u2019<\/p>\n

One of the most striking images from before is of Stuart and Anne standing proudly in the middle of their garden, arms outstretched. He takes the phone and gives the image a little kiss. Anne died in December. This has been the first summer without her. It has been a long one.<\/p>\n

\u2018Dementia,\u2019 he says. \u2018She had it for about three years. It was awful towards the end. She got quite violent. She didn\u2019t know what she was doing. We had to lock the doors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘She stopped eating in about September, I mean just stopped, wouldn\u2019t have more than a spoonful of yoghurt. She was in hospital eventually, then a nursing home at the end.\u2019<\/p>\n

He had Dan plant a little memorial garden for Anne halfway down, behind a tree called a Lace Lady which sweeps elegantly over the lawn. There is now a little bench there, which we meander down to (I\u2019m only allowed on the grass because I have trainers on). The dwarf conifers are coming on nicely in this shaded spot.<\/p>\n

\"\u00bfI\u00bfll <\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ll be getting hate mail if you use an aerial shot,\u2019 jokes the 83-year-old retired joiner<\/p>\n

\"Stuart <\/p>\n

Stuart has kept his garden green despite the heatwave<\/p>\n

\"Stuart <\/p>\n

Stuart pictured in 2024 watering his garden, which was previously named\u00a0‘Britain’s Best Lawn’<\/p>\n

\u2018I just sit and think about her. Little Annie. We rarely had a cross word, you know. We met at 17, married at 21. She was the only one for me.\u2019<\/p>\n

How did you know she was the one? \u2018The nurse\u2019s uniform,\u2019 he deadpans. They met at a youth club and married in 1964, living with his mother at first then buying their first home (complete with postage stamp sized garden) in Maltby.<\/p>\n

In 1969 they moved to a new development in Worksop and in 1973 Jonathan was born. There was a golf course nearby, however, and Stuart found himself gazing at the green and becoming \u2018a little obsessed\u2019.<\/p>\n

His next door neighbour\u2019s father was a green keeper and they got chatting about grass seed. It wasn\u2019t until they moved to this house, in 1976, that they had a sizeable garden to work with.<\/p>\n

It was scrubland before Stuart got to grips with it, and even then he let friends use it as an allotment before his passion really took over. \u2018I sowed the seed myself,\u2019 he recalls. \u2018No turf here. And then I watched it grow …\u2019<\/p>\n

Half a century on, he\u2019s still watching. He has a keen eye. \u2018I don\u2019t like gardens that go up and down, that\u2019s why there are no straight lines in mine. The eye has to be drawn. You go \u201coh, that\u2019s interesting, what\u2019s over there\u201d.<\/p>\n

How much has he spent on this garden over the years? \u2018I\u2019d say about \u00a360,000\u2019. That\u2019s not including the man hours.<\/p>\n

When he was working Stuart would get up at 6am to \u2018swish\u2019 (basically brush the lawn), then come home from work and immediately get to mowing. After retirement, he could spend entire days on his grass. He never let Jonathan kick a football on the lawn. They couldn\u2019t go on extended holidays because the garden couldn\u2019t handle the neglect.<\/p>\n

Dare we ask if he will ever leave his garden, or worse, let nature take over? He\u2019s already let a couple of sections go, \u2018but no, I\u2019d find that very hard. It\u2019s my life\u2019s work, this is 50 years of my life, of Anne. I\u2019ll leave it when they carry me out.\u2019<\/p>\n

Will he care about what happens after he is no longer here, then? He says Jonathan is unlikely to keep the garden. \u2018Nope. He\u2019ll sell up, and maybe some young couple will come in, with two little snappers, and rip it all up.\u2019<\/p>\n

What if they put down \u2013 the horror! \u2013 artificial grass, and have an entire family of garden gnomes? \u2018I won\u2019t be here,\u2019 he says. \u2018They can do what they like. That\u2019s the thing about a garden. It\u2019s personal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The view from above is extraordinary. While there are scorched gardens and tinder-dry fields as far as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[539,246,61,60,43,82],"class_list":["post-593789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-dailymail","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}