Gardeners’ World & Alan Titchmarsh Gardening Club 2025

@Obelix-Vendée I watched the last episode again this morning and there is definitely some winter scenes going on in the specials. Frances is in winter clothes, Rachel puts the lights on, and Adam is planting hellebores.

I enjoyed watching the last episode.

 

So did I @simone_in_wiltshire , particularly the visit to Waterperry Gardens. That is one of my favourites to visit, particularly when the Michaelmas daisies are in flower.

I found the item about the planting on the housing estate fascinating, and I didn't realise at first that the lady was Beth Chatto's granddaughter.
Our front garden dries out very quickly in the Summer as it's in full sun from sunrise until at least 3pm, and this year the front lawn was like straw very quickly (although it's now green and lush again).

I would like to try that type of planting if things continue the same way weatherwise, although digging up my OH's lawn would probably result in divorce .

 

The same with me @AnniD. I had no problems with MD this time

I had started writing when OH decided to go to Avebury and I had to stop. These front gardens are nice but the owners are not allowed to take care of them.

 

I watched the first winter episode and enjoyed each of the topics. I will watch it again tomorrow.

 

It was a lovely programme @simone_in_wiltshire

 

Did catch it Friday evening with Frances whos getting really good at presenting . Some lovely gardens shown and dedicated owners & Gardners . Enjoyed !

 

..... and she's very easy on the eye

 

I am a relative new gardeners to a lot of you on here, but in my short gardening hobby one thing I have learned is that gardening is repetitive, as sure as the last series is making leaf mould, lifting and storing dahlia and oiling and cleaning tools, as sure as night follows day, you know the first series next year will be dividing snowdrops, cleaning the greenhouse, sorting seeds and showing a garden somewhere warm, whilst in reality for us it will be bloody cold and wet outside, oh joy!

 

I was listening to last week’s Gardeners’ Question Time and they were talking whether a neighbour’s ivy hedge is killing their privet hedge, the great Pippa Greenwood suggested it is unlikely to be the neighbour’s ivy hedge as privet hedges are quite robust and a cause maybe instead honey fungus, now radio isn’t the best media to demonstrate plant diseases, even though I do love GQT, it isn’t the best for that.

So thinking they should cover the different diseases and pests on Gardeners World and how to cure them, maybe a short segment each week - if they did it with Pippa Greenwood even better! The 5 years I gave been watching GW they haven’t covered this, GW have seemed to forgotten that beginner gardeners watch, after the pandemic Monty said he wanted to reach out to to the beginner, as the GW was aware many new gardeners were/are watching, with people housebound and working from home, striking the iron whilst it is hot with plenty on new viewers - this has kind of gone into room 101?

 

I do remember GW doing box moth/blight. The answer was to dispose of the hedging. But can't think of anything else.

 

Pippa Greenwood used to be a regular on GW in the days of Geoff Hamilton. Another was Anne Swithinbank on houseplants.

Given Monty's record with box blight and moths I wouldn't trust his advice on any pests or diseases to be founded on knowledge based experience so yes, maybe they should have aregular guest from the RHS labs on dealing with pests and diseases, organically if possible.

Anne used to deal with one or two houseplants at a time and how to care for them. These days we just get enthusiasts who've turned their homes into jungles which I find unattractive and overwhelming with no real info on each plant that any of us may be growing. I have plenty of houseplants here but none take over the room, let alone the whole living space altho, since I started watering them with a solution of banana skins and an orange peel they have gone a bit bananas.

 

Monty did a piece on box blight, for no other reason Longmeadow was suffering from it, if it hadn’t it wouldn’t be covered, so saying have a planned segment on diseases, pests and when a plant is in poor shape like lack of nutrition or stressed.

House plants are massive now with the younger generation as they don’t have gardens. So Anne Switherbank was ahead of her time then? they should bring house plants back, maybe with the excellent James Wang, I agree it wouldn’t be great having some social media plant influencer.

So Gardeners World has wrapped up for the year and gone to a winter special so what is the actual difference except time of year? I think they should do GW all year round, so when the Summer one wraps up, they could do a Winter one in November, first 2 weeks in December, January & February but the winter one do with different presenters than the Summer one, the segment with James Wang as suggested above would be good to have, maybe a hour might be challenging programme in the Winter, so do 30/45 minutes if struggle for an hour.

They could do with an editor who knows nothing about gardening, but wants to learn and can ask the inquisitive questions that the people with experience overlook, because they assume you know it.

Finally it is great to have the excellent Francis Tophill as a panellist on GQT.