Gardeners’ World & Alan Titchmarsh Gardening Club 2025

Or washing?

 

There were lovely gardens on the last GW but when they show roses I wish they would tell us their names.

 

All the plants need names @Busy-Lizzie, or they could at least name them on the GW webiste so we can look them up and see if they'd do for our gardens.

 

A search reveals the following email address to contact the production team.
[email protected]

Haven't tried it yet, so not sure if it's viable. Everything else seem to be concerned with contacting the magazine or GW Live.

It might be worth asking why they can't name them on screen or add information on the website.
The cynical part of me thinks there will be some reason why it can't be done, but you never know....

 

It used to be done way back in GH's time and the technology has not gone backwards @AnniD

 

You know that and I know that @Obelix-Vendée, but I'm a cynical woman .

 

I don't think anyone working in TV production suffered form meeja studies @AnniD but I get the feeling the Beeb is suffering from a bad rash of them now.

 

The BBC is known for not naming plants, wandering now, but how many of those creepily described programmes by Attenborough have shown plant life that never gets a name.

 

But he doesn't do gardening programmes and when he did do a series on them the plants were named in the commentary. I thoroughly enjoyed that series.

 

As I say off topic but he did do a few programmes about plants and the names were never clear, just waffle about what animals lived off them mostly.

I gave up on his so called plant programmes very quickly.

 

I remember it as having lots of slow motion photography about how plants move - brambles were prominent - and how they have differently shaped and coloured flowers to attract pollinators and deter pests; how their foliage adapts to their local climate conditions and potential pests; how trees communicate with each other underground and with microrhizal fungae helping. The plants singled out for attention were all named in the commentary.

In a gardening programme it's essential that plant names be given on screen so we can go and find them or at least research their viability for our gardens.

 

Time lapse photography of plants is interesting isn't it?
As for brambles there could be as many as 400 microspecies in the UK.

For more on mycorrhizal communication between plants I would recommend "Entangled Life" by Merlin Sheldrake and "Finding the Mother Tree" by Suzanne Simard; both well written and readable.
As for plant names switch to GQT on Radio 4 their website has a list of all plants mentioned. You can also listen while gardening.

 

Thanks @NigelJ but I can't get Radio 2 here nor, from past experience, can I get it in the car when I happen to be in the UK driving along the M4 corridor. Lack of signal boosters? No English language library here but I might just put those 2 books on my Xmas list.

GQT once came to Brussels to do a show. Eric Ronson thought he was being very funny when he asked how many of the audience had gone native and ate chicons/endives. Clearly horrified by the answer but he's probably never had them "au gratin" - braised then wrapped in ham, covered in a cheese sauce and more grated cheese then baked till golden and bubbling. Yum!

 

Radio 2 wash your mouth out, it's a Radio 4 programme been there since before the Archers.

 

Beg pardon. Can't get that down that corridor either. Used to get it on LW in Belgium but not possible here.