For more than three decades, Ann Lush has opened her house and its series of lush, interlinked gardens to the public, raising thousands of pounds for the Children’s Society and her church.
Now the “human dynamo”, as friends and family call her, is being recognised on national television.
Ann’s four‑bedroom detached home, on Tudor close which she has lived in for 54 years, is almost as famous locally as she is.
Every corner is carefully tended: flower beds bursting with colour, hidden statues and sheep ornaments, a pond and waterfall that draw dragonflies and birds, and a “fairy walk” created for her grandchildren and visiting children.
“When my granddaughter was about five she came running in and said, ‘Grandma, you’ve got a fairy walk’,” Ann said.
“There are little fairies tucked away up there now, and the children love hunting for them.”
The garden is only part of the story. Inside, Ann’s dining room turns into a shop on Penarth’s open gardens weekend, with tables laden with homemade jams, chutneys, cakes and marmalades.
At her busiest she was making around 1,200 jars a year including eight marmalade flavours and a Christmas chutney packed with fruit and decorated with tiny Christmas trees on the labels.
“People ring up and order it and some say it’s the last proper shop they can find,” she said. “On open gardens weekend this room is full, jams, marmalade, chutneys, all my homemade cakes and we have a big awning on the patio with tables and chairs for tea.”
Tickets for the trail, which has now been running for 30 years, include homemade cake and unlimited tea or coffee. Over time more and more neighbours joined in, turning the event into the Penarth Open Gardens Trail, with visitors travelling from across South Wales and beyond.
The idea began after Ann read an article by gardening presenter Alan Titchmarsh in the Children’s Society magazine, encouraging people to open their gardens “great or small” for the charity.
“I looked at my husband Dennis and said, ‘We’ll do this’,” she recalled. “We gave ourselves three weeks to get ready. Most men would have said ‘not likely’ he just said ‘OK’.”
That first event raised £500, a substantial sum at the time, and it has grown ever since. Ann has also hosted strawberry teas, barbecues, garage sales, coffee mornings and buffets at home, always with an eye for detail matching tablecloths, fresh flowers, and a warm welcome for everyone who comes through the door.
She and her late husband both worked in banking and finance, led to the couple being awarded MBEs 26 years ago for their work with the Children’s Society.
They later became honorary vice‑presidents of the charity and Ann went on to serve on its main London fundraising committee.
Ann’s commitment has come despite significant personal challenges. She lost both her parents as a child and was raised by her widowed grandmother during the war, in an era of rationing and no NHS.
As an adult she has had 28 operations and been in hospital 41 times, including a broken hip and spinal damage in a fall three years ago.
“I never stop,” she said with a smile. “But after what my gran did for us, I always said that if I ever had a home of my own, everyone would be welcome and that if I could help another child, I would. This house and garden have let me do that.”
When BBC Gardeners’ World contacted her to film in the garden, Ann admits she “couldn’t believe it”. But for the many people who have walked her “fairy walk”, sat by her waterfall or eaten cake in her garden, the national spotlight is long overdue.
Ann and her late husband Dennis were recognised for their extraordinary efforts when they each received MBEs for services to the Children’s Society, becoming the first couple to be honoured together in this way. In a previous Penarth Times interview after Dennis’s death, Ann described their decades of fundraising as a “wonderful and thrilling journey” and said they were a “brilliant team”, combining her enthusiasm with his financial expertise and love of gardening.
