When most couples move into a new home tackling the garden is usually at the bottom of their “to do” list, but for Tom and Jenny Williams it was their No 1 priority.

Now, 10 years on, visitors to their home would be excused for thinking they had employed teams of gardeners and been advised by top professionals.

The couple’s piece de resistance - a huge walled garden which dates from the 18th century – would not look out of place alongside any of the country’s stately homes. Amazingly, as only eight years ago it was simply an overgrown field.

On June 9 and 10 the gardens at The Laundry at Llanrhaeadr Hall, near Denbigh, will once again be open to the public under the National Garden Scheme and Tom and Jenny are looking forward to seeing the reactions of visitors.

The enormity of their achievement can only be appreciated, however, if one studies the “before” pictures which illustrate the scale of the project.

The property – originally the laundry and dairy for the hall - has been in Tom’s family for four generations but he and Jenny moved in in 2008.

“We applied for planning permission to refurbish the house and started work on the garden at the same time,” said Jenny, who trained as a hairdresser. “Most people would probably sort the house out first but we couldn’t wait to start on the garden.”

The garden covers a total of three-and-a-half acres and falls into three parts – one being the immediate spaces around the house with a pleached lime avenue, hall garden, and Regent Street, so called because of its curve like its London namesake, the second being the walled garden and thirdly the wooded area around the outside of the walled garden.

The garden was first opened under the NGS scheme in 2014 and then again in 2016, but it was Jane Moore, the North East Wales organiser, who persuaded them that the walled garden would be a huge attraction.

“We had blanked it out because it was such a big task but Jane encouraged us to do it,” said Tom, a builder.

He and Jenny had an idea of what they would like and since 2014 have spent most of their spare time making their plans become a reality.

“We don’t let it rule our lives but it does take up most of our weekends and we’re very pleased with the way it’s turning out,” said Tom.

Jenny has her own blog – thelaundryrocks – in which she describes each stage of the transformation, what plants they are putting in and what they plan to do next.

“It’s a kind of diary which I find useful and which I hope will be of interest as a record in future for our three sons,” she said.

“Opening to the public under the Garden Scheme is an incentive to get on with things, apart from supporting good causes,” she added.

A photograph of one corner of the hall garden was chosen for the cover of the NGS booklet this year.

The couple recently began taking in guests for bed-and-breakfast and see the walled garden as suitable for certain types of open-air performances.