Hubert Howard

Early in 1940, Howard volunteered for the British expeditionary force to Finland. In 1941, he was assigned to the Allies' Psychological Warfare Branch (PWB) in Italy, with which he served as an intelligence officer throughout the Italian campaign.^[5]

On 17 September 1951, Howard was married to Lelia Calista Ada Caetani (1913–1977),^[6] painter and plantswoman, the only daughter of Marguerite (née Chapin) Caetani and the noted composer Roffredo Caetani, 17th Duke of Sermoneta and 8th Prince of Teano, who was the last of her 1,000-year-old family line.^[7] There were no children of the marriage. His wife died on 11 January 1977. Howard died ten years later on 17 February 1987, aged 79.^{[citation needed]}

The couple continued the restoration of the Caetani family's garden at their estate of Ninfa, Lazio, which Lelia had inherited on the death of her brother,^[8] who died on the Albanian front in 1940.^[9] The couple transformed it into one of the most widely admired gardens in Italy. The garden is laid out among the romantic ruins of a small castle and village which had been abandoned in 1381, set on the edge of the Pontine Marshes south of Rome. Today over 10,000 shrubs, plants and flowering trees grow among the medieval ruins and a lake formed by damming the river Ninfa. The garden owes little to the formal Italian style, but is developed in an English tradition of plantsmanship and painterly sensitivity. Ninfa has been described as "the most romantic garden in the world". Ownership of the garden was transferred to the Roffredo Caetani Foundation, named after the father of Lelia Howard, which continues to manage the garden today. It is open to the public at set times from April to November.^[10]