Tony Newton做了35年的普通开业医生。但有时候，他说话时，你会突然想，他的工作生涯是不是作为一个维多利亚时代的校长度过的。
因为他从不忌讳对那些不谨慎、不服从分子施加一些铁腕。
“他们需要管理，你知道的。他们之中总是有一些恶棍，”他说着，眼睛眯起来，摆了摆手指。“所以你得告诉他们谁才是掌权的。叫他们看看谁是老大。”
Tony Newton spent 35 years as a GP. Yet sometimes, when he's talking, you momentarily wonder if he'd spent his working life as a Victorian-era schoolmaster.
For he isn't afraid to impose a little iron discipline on the unwary or the unwilling.
"They want to take control, you know. There's a bit of thug in all of them," he says, his eyes narrowing, his finger wagging. "So you've got to tell them who's in charge. Show them who's boss."
获奖：托尼和玛丽.牛顿的花园凝聚了20年爱的劳作。
那些危险分子是谁呢，谁需要教训？是一帮本地混混？一群整个下午都在本地火车站抽烟的小青年？
不。他所说的，是他后花园里的灌木丛。尤其是那一群绚烂的槭属植物——枫树——它们那发脆的、闪亮的叶子变成了深深的铜红色，在今天灿烂的秋日暖阳里熠熠闪烁。
托尼完全没有时间来多愁善感：他和他的妻子玛丽在他们的花园中种的这3000株植物，每一棵都必须“挣得自己的位置，用自己的方式回报”，要不然就会受到即时的惩罚——被赶出这片土地。
等等。在后花园里种3000棵植物？
没错。而且这不是由一队专业园丁打理的豪华古宅。这只是一个普通的郊区后园，紧邻着这对夫妻价值360000英镑的中产阶级房子，但现在的它是非同寻常的。
Award-winning: Tony and Marie Newton's garden has been a labour of love for over 20 years
Who are the menaces who need some sense knocked into them? A local gang? The bunch of teenagers who spend their afternoons smoking in the local railway station?
No. He's talking about the shrubs in his back garden. In particular, a group of glorious acers — maples — whose crisp, shiny leaves have turned such a deep, coppery red that they are positively glowing in the glorious autumn sunshine today.
For Tony there's no room for sentimentality: every one of the 3,000 plants he and his wife Marie have planted in their garden must "earn its place and pay its way" or risk instant punishment by being whipped out of the ground.
Hold on a moment. Three thousand plants in one back garden?
Quite so. And this is no stately home maintained by an army of professional gardeners. It's an ordinary suburban back garden, perched behind the couple's £360,000 pebble-dashed home, which has been turned into something quite extraordinary.
铁锹天赋：Tony和Marie Newton
Newton的花园分成界限鲜明的两个部分。靠近房子的是上花园，这块地方植物种得很整齐——长长尖尖、黄绿相间的冬青木、蓝绿的松柏、深红的杜鹃——环绕着一片繁茂、青翠的草地。每棵植物都不能碰到自己的邻居。
之后，花园改变了。较低的地方挤挤挨挨、浓荫蔽日，又弯弯绕绕。下到这里，相互间的触碰就很多了。那里有高大的竹子，头顶横着棕榈树枝，脚下落叶咯吱作响。光线斑斑点点、不可预知。一道清澈的溪流在周围沙沙地流转。
所有这一切组成了这座私人家庭花园，它比我以前见过的所有园子都要美丽。
而所有的一切，都是Tony和Marie自己完成的——除了搬进来时他们继承的两棵树，他们种下每一棵植物，亲手铺设小径，装配水景，建起那座大大的木亭、作下花园的中心。
Marie说：“有时候，我们会在清晨拉开窗帘，看到一些东西—一可能是十月早晨一片令人惊叹的绚丽鲜红——都不敢相信这是我们自己创造出来的。”
Tony和Marie今年都62岁了，已经退休两年，他们在1982年买了这栋房子，对花园并没有太多的想法。“它杂草丛生，完全被忽略了。那里有一些又大又老、生了病的松柏。有很多的种子。”
这对夫妇最开始撇下了花园，整日忙于供养家庭——他们五年之间有了四个孩子。但是之后他们重新铺设了小路，孩子们渐渐长大，他们开始了景观美化——他们运进了11吨泥土、大块的石头和一株7英尺高的棕榈树。接着他们开始修筑那条溪流，最初那只有12英尺长，但他们把它延长了4倍。
Tony和Marie是两个完全靠自学的园丁，除了禁止飞燕草之外没有任何规矩，因为他们欢迎蛞蝓。
Talent in spades: Tony and Marie Newton
There are two distinct halves to the Newtons' garden. Nearest to the house ("the upper garden") is an area of formal planting — spiky yellow and green hollies, bluey-green conifers, deep red azalea bushes — set around an area of lush, green grass. Here no plant is allowed to touch its neighbour.
Then the garden changes. The lower area is busy, shady, twisty. There's lots of touching going on down here. There are huge bamboos, palm tree branches overhead, crunchy leaves underfoot. The light is dappled and unpredictable. A clear stream swishes its way around.
All of which adds up to a private family garden more beautiful than any other I have seen.
And Tony and Marie did it all themselves — from planting every one of the plants (apart from the two they inherited when they moved in) to laying the paths, assembling the water features and building the large wooden pagoda that forms a focal point of the lower garden.
Marie says: "We sometimes open the curtains in the morning and catch sight of something — an amazing red glow on an October morning, perhaps — and you can't quite believe that we created this."
Tony and Marie, both 62 and retired for two years, bought the house in 1982 and didn't give the garden much thought. "It was quite overgrown and had been neglected. There were some huge, old and diseased conifers. There were a lot of weeds."
The couple left the garden at first, too busy bringing up their family (they had four children in five years). But then they relaid the paths and made a go-kart track the length of the sloping garden, which doubled as a sledge run in the winter.
As their children grew up, they started landscaping — importing 11 tons of soil, some big rocks and a 7ft-tall palm tree. Then they worked on the stream, originally 12ft long but they increased it four-fold.
Tony and Marie are entirely self-taught gardeners and have no rules apart from banning delphiniums (because they encourage slugs).
相反的，他们种上了成百株杜鹃、松柏和槭树，几十棵冬青、杜鹃，还有许多的马醉木——一种开白花的常绿灌木、攀援树木的卫矛——如今它正呈现出一派火红景象。他们的想法是，这座园子在春夏秋冬都要灿烂鲜艳。
这对夫妇每天都要出门，做将近三个小时的园艺。他们不是从一边做到另一边，而是Tony从一个方向出发、他的妻子从另一头出发——带着一台收音机，调到古典频道。
这些日子里，他们把工作时间规定在了白天。但是在退休之前，他们有时候会在工作归来后做园艺，把手电筒绑在头上来照明。
一年之中有几次，他们会让公众付费入园欣赏，并以此为慈善机构筹集了一大笔钱。“几年下来，我们接待了8500个游客，筹集了25000镑，”玛丽说。
说到钱，Newton家为这个花园付出了多少呢？他们不能、也不会给出他们投入的具体数目，但是肯定到五位数了，甚至可能上了六位数。很显然，花的每一分钱都是值得的。
在谈论他们所创造的一切时，他们脸上的微笑充分说明了心中那份完全有理、微微陈旧的骄傲。
所有这一切引出了一个问题：他们能忍受搬离这座房子吗？从Marie的脸色我们可以清楚地知道，她已经想过了这个问题，明白这个答案很痛苦。
“如果你是实际的，你就会明白我们无法保持这样的工作量20年……”她说。但是她会很高兴地知道，即使某一天他们必须离开，他们的辛劳会给成千上万的人带来快乐。
“这会是份可爱的遗产，”她说着，淘气地露齿一笑。“如果太多了，我们可以随时用上电锯。”
Instead, they've planted hundreds of azaleas, conifers and acers, dozens of holly bushes, rhododendrons, lots of pieris (evergreen shrubs with small white flowers) and euonymus (spindle trees) which are currently providing a glorious display of red. The idea is to have a garden that looks brilliant in spring, summer, autumn and winter.
The couple are outside every day, doing up to three hours of gardening. Rather than work side by side, Tony heads in one direction and his wife in another — carrying a radio tuned into Classic FM.
These days, they restrict their exertions to daylight hours. But before they retired, they'd sometimes garden after work, strapping torches to their heads.
A few times a year they invite the paying public to visit and raise large amounts of money for charity. "Over the years, we've had 8,500 visitors and raised £25,000," Marie says.
Talking of money, how much has the garden cost the Newtons? They can't or won't put a price on the money they've ploughed into it, but it must run into five figures, and possibly six. It's clearly been worth every penny.
The pride — fully justified, lightly worn — that they feel is manifested by the warm smiles on their faces as they talk about what they have created.
All this begs the question: could they ever bear to move house? It's clear from Marie's face that she's given some thought to the question and finds the answer painful.
"If you're realistic, you can't think we could keep this workload up in 20 years' time ..." she says. But she'll be happy in the knowledge that even if they have to leave one day, their endeavours will have given pleasure to so many thousands of people.
"It'll be a lovely legacy," she says. Then a mischievous grin plants itself on her face. "And if it gets too much, we can always get a chainsaw!"