Gardeners World

I completely agree with that, Helenium. Half an hour, once a week, is not enough. The problem is that gardening can actually be quite boring on TV. We love doing it, not watching it. Which is why the new, more entertaining format of GW was great. And a whole hour too - enough to crack open a bottle of red and settle down on a Friday night.

I'd like to see a setpiece, fun, new format Gardeners World for an hour once a week. Then three or four other programmes throughout the week.

A dreary old half-hour Geoff Hamilton style "this is how to..." lecture type programme for the grumbly old-timers, a quirky "Thrifty Gardening" type thing by Alys Fowler, maybe a garden tour thing about design and planning and planting too.

 

I completely agree that more gardening programmes are needed. I'm at risk of becoming precious about Geoff Hamilton but you are just plain wrong-he was categorically not a lecturer-he was so popular for that very reason. Honestly, I have fallen asleep in enough lectures to know one when I sleep through one.

Any gardener worth their salt eventually comes to accept that all form and no substance is the fast track to a garden full of ailing and pitiful looking plants. You just can't skip out the basics.

If you can't go to Gardeners World to find out the nitty gritty, the hard earned truths, the "how tos" to gardening, where can you go? I can't blame the presenters to be honest, I would take their advice pretty much any day over my own and many other peoples, it's the content and format I have issues with.

Granted this would all be resolved if the programme makers produced more different types of new gardening programmes, catered to people with short attention spans, alongside some in depth programmes for those of us who wish to develop expertise.

Now I'll take my creaking, crumbly old-timer 35 year old body out to count how many snowdrops I have today.

 

Lollipop, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that the new format programme catered for those with short attention spans. I think I may fall into that category because I usually watch GW while surfing the net. The new format was visually appealing as far as the plants and gardens were concerned but I must admit I was usually more interested in seeing what type of flower accessories Carol was wearing and to see if Alys had bothered to comb her hair.

I'm lucky enough to have a garden to get my fill of beautiful plants but I do enjoy listening to Carol enthusing about plants. If I was starting out she would certainly inspire me.

Someone mentioned Geoffrey Smith - he was the person who inspired me with his poetic language and vast knowledge of plants and gardens. I didn't always agree with his planting schemes but it was the days before garden design was so popular (at least pre all the garden makeovers!!). I was sorry to hear he had died but I know I will always remember Geoffrey Smiths World of Flowers as one of the loveliest television programmes I have ever watched. In fact I'm off to ebay now to see if I can get a copy on DVD.

 

I was excited at the thought of a new Gardeners world location for 2009, a blank canvas, fresh start etc etc. A great inspiration for new gardeners I thought. But when you consider that by the end of the season last year...the garden was already quite (cough) mature..how many new gardeners must have felt like a failure last year and may well pave their beds this year due to it? And all this happened in just a few minutes a week as we are whisked off to Glebe cottage, or Joes designed garden or somewhere else.

I really think that Gardeners world has missed a trick...possibly more than that. A new start using new plants of the size that we all buy or grow from cuttings and seeds, why not "watch" these plants and garden mature over the course of two or three years rather than a few weeks/months? Get us intimately involved and dont do stuff off camera thats suddenly there on the next programme.

Toby planted some berries towards the end of the last season, digging the turf up to do so, you just know that next season there will be a full blown fruit cage/patch there.

How often is something planted that you might get a glimpse of in a later episode, or something is planted that you dont see then is featured. Maybe this last year they should have been filming for the next, film the propagation of pentemons for example, grow them on..film again..film the planting out then show the plants in flower..all in the one programme sequence. So viewers get to see the whole thing.

Gardeners world is ok'ish, but in all honesty...I can learn far more here in half an hour and watch other peoples garden grow at a realistic pace through these pages.

Come on BBC Boffins, make a programme for Gardeners...not for ratings. 2 x 1 hour programmes a week at least.

Steve...

 

Well said, Steve, I completely agree with you. :gnthb:

 

Lollipop - don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Geoff Hamilton. His Barnsdale Collection on video is a favourite of mine when I'm ill and can move off the sofa.

It's that it's so dry and instructive. "This is how you do x by the book, this is how you do y, this is how you do z". A few years ago when I was just getting into gardening, I just would have switched off. That's not a reflection on Geoff the man - it's just how TV was in those days.

I'd be gutted if Gardeners World went back to that kind of intruction manual approach. I'd go to the pub instead of bothering to watch.

I do think there is room for that kind of programme, however. But it should be IN ADDITION TO the main Gardeners World setpiece programme which is fun and modern and appealing to new gardeners, and with chat and 30 minute fixes to give you ideas for the weekend, and quirky tips like building a coldframe from scrap etc. That was all excellent, and gave me loads of ideas that I then adapted using my own initiative and knowledge.

 

To give an example. When Toby went round to Sarah Cox's house and showed her how easy it was to make a small veg patch.

Now, we all know that technically you shouldn't just dig up lawn and sow carrots straight in there. But new gardeners would have watched that and thought "wow. that easy? I'll try it". And you know what? They WOULD have got a crop from it. They would then learn how to improve the soil etc, after being encouraged by that first step.

However, he got a lot of stick for that from some, for not showing every single step involved in turning lawn to perfect productive bed. But wouldn't that have just made novices think "that looks like hassle. I won't bother. Where's the remote?"

 

What a breath of fresh air you are Andrew,just love your points of view..................I might not agree with them all,but fair play to you :gnthb:

 

So, as you might expect here, we are all in agreement-more gardening on telly please.

 

Mmmm, interesting lolli, depends on how much telly you watch I guess.

A lot of my best gardening buddies and inspirations don't watch it at all, except for the news or movie or two (due to our heavy rain season we can't get outside either so are 'captives' in our homes) .. but I see your point ...

 

Maybe with 17 years of Geoff already on tape...a complete re-run would be a second BBC programme to Gardeners world..providing they show the correct programmes at the correct time of the year.

Steve...

 

Very true Victoria & John, it depends on differences in situation and circumstance. Having young children, I am not free to socialise outside of home or be in my garden as much as I would like. When I am older my time will be more my own and I will be free to pursue my pleasures where I please. I have trouble reading even a page of book in peace, I have forgotten what a quiet bath-time is like. My time is not my own unfortunately, and almost all my gardening pals are here, or on the box. I crave your freedom of movement, almost as much as your abode.


I do think there should be something on over the winter months-something really beautiful such as that Victorian Garden programme ( I forget it's correct name), in the summer I am usually out in the garden whilst the kids play around me, it's in winter I suffer withdrawal-and probably why I am so grumbling at the moment-sorry. It will pass, it has already started to, I have my first snowdrop of the year now and all is becoming right with the world.

I also appreciate Andrew's views on the quality of television programmes, something encouraging is definitely needed also.

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[align=center]Geoff Hamilton was the longest serving presenter of Gardeners' World from 1979 to 1996

I,m just so glad that I was around for those 17 years

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As am I Woo, and think-I was but a little girl when I started watching it with my Mum, he was like a second Dad to me, along with another wonderfully kind fellow-Bob Ross who presented The Joy of Painting


We watched these programmes together, by ourselves-good times indeed.

 

Ooooh, please, please, please.