"IF you want convention, then our garden isn't for you, there is nothing co-ordinated, we really like it to be random."

But the judges loved it, and they voted Bill and Anne Baxter the winners of Boston's Best Kept Front Garden Competition.

Bill and Anne, of Middlegate Road West, Frampton, have won the highly-coveted top prize – a three-seater wooden garden hammock including cushions and cover plus a coffee table, all worth a whopping £417.

The competition – sponsored by Johnson's Garden Centre, The Boston Target and Boston Borough Council – was judged by a panel made up of deputy leader of the council, Brenda Owen, regional manager for Johnson's Garden Centre, Phillip Galley and news editor for the Target, Marie Williamson.

Speaking about the winning garden, Brenda Owen said: "The garden has a good mixture of permanent planting, including shrubs and perennials, as well as a lot of autumn and winter interest through the various structures such as the water feature."

The winning garden is a haven of horticultural beauty with an array of interesting gardening artistry including bedding plants, perennials, trees, ornaments, and other features. Among the various planting there are palm trees, a Red Acer tree, a Bean Tree, Robinia, ferns and Magnolia, as well as bedding plants offering splashes of colour here and there.

The couple based their garden on things that they love and Anne's flair for art and craft has been a strong influence.

The garden boasts many wonderfully imaginative and interesting features which the pair made themselves.

Their beach-themed corner includes sand, shells, model boats and a lighthouse made from odds and ends including old chimney pots and an old container once used by a garage to hold distilled water, which they have wired up with a bulb so that it lights up at night.

Anne has also expressed her passion for old and dilapidated buildings with her part-built wall including a stained glass church window, replicating a section of an aged and crumbling building, set among the plants and shrubs.

The garden also offers cosy habitation for local wildlife with a little pond accommodating an assortment of creatures. Frogs and tadpoles are among the most common lodgers, while the rare and protected Great Crested Newt has been known to set up home in the welcoming lagoon.

Bill and Anne are very happy that their garden has received the title of Best Kept Front Garden, Anne added: "We are thrilled to have won this competition, we have never wanted our garden to be regimented and it is wonderful that people like our taste too".

The competition has been a feature of the council's recently-adopted Greening Boston initiative to combat the loss of green space in urban areas. The council is promoting the use of green space and planting in urban areas.

Second place went to Steve Clare, Glen Drive, Boston, who has won an easy-use McCulloch key-start petrol lawn mower worth £299. Frank Bashford, Haworth Way, Boston, won third prize, bagging him a Marrakesh table and two chair set worth £199.