Fareham pensioner couple 'devastated' after hapless driver mistakenly trashes garden after confusing address for another property

Barbara and John Holton, from Fareham, were shocked to find their 50-year pride and joy flattened after a clumsy driver reversed through their front lawn - trampling dozens of their meticulously cared for bedding plants in the process.

The couple, who have won Fareham in Bloom competitions several times, were approached last Friday by a lady asking for help after she mistook their address in Stubbington Lane, for the same house number a few roads down at May’s Lane. She had parked her car on their drive.

John, 83, was working in the garage at the time. He explained to her where she needed to go and she went on her way, and he went back into the garage.

But when the driver reversed out she accidentally went across the couple’s prize lawn, ‘messing up’ plants they’d nurtured over the years.

Barbara, 85, said: ‘I was devastated. When she turned around she went all over the garden and part of the lawn. It was flattened.

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‘I feel very sad. We’ve been doing our garden every year since the ‘70s.’

The driver mistakenly flattened rows of plants which the couple had grown from seed.

Between them, John and Barbara had lovingly planted them into trays of 40 before transferring them to their front garden when they were big enough.

But many of them have now been damaged following the accidental ordeal.

‘That was a mistake on her part,’ Barbara said. ‘Our pride and joy, our front garden has been ruined.

‘Anyone that goes by who is interested would mention how lovely the garden is,’ Barbara said.

‘We do it every year.’

In 2006, John and Barbara won the borough’s gardening campaign, Fareham in Bloom, for their bright and colourful planting schemes.

In recent years, they’ve ‘often placed second’ in the competition since first being awarded in 2002.

Now the couple will be focused on reviving parts of their flower beds following the hapless driver’s mistake.