What's the BBC done to upset the UK's gardeners?

I never thought, back in the day when I had razor blade earrings and liked punk music, that I would ever become a gardener.

But a gardener I am, in my spare time. And one of my pleasures is watching BBC Gardeners' World, which my parents used to watch in the era of Percy Thrower, even further back in the day.

Lately though, the nation's gardeners are up in arms.

The BBC keeps cancelling Gardeners' World for sport. Women's football, snooker, and soon athletics. Instead of moving something to the red button, or online, or to a different channel, they simply cancel Gardeners' World.

At this time of year when our herbacious perennials are starting to go crazy, we're thirsty for gardening know-how and knowledge from Monty Don and team. It's just not on!

To add insult to injury, BBC Scotland commendably moved the snooker to the red button so that Beechgrove Garden went out as normal.

Over on Facebook, a new group "Keep Gardeners' World Growing" has a petition and the members have been bombarding the BBC with letters and getting patronizing replies. 

Tonight on Twitter, Monty's Dog Nigel  (yes really) will lead a protest that will hopefully see #GardenersWorld trending again. 

You see, it's not an isolated incident.  This has been happening for years.  Some Tristram or other public school idiot (sorry) at the BBC has decided gardening is a minority hobby practiced by toothless silver surfers or Jeremy Corbyn (known for having an allotment).

Let me enlighten you with these stats from the Horticultural Trades Association:

There are 22 million domestic gardens in the UK

There are 600,000 allotments in the UK, with long waiting lists (source: UK Govt)

UK consumers spend around £5 billion a year on products and plants for their gardens - that's more than we spend on chocolate as a nation 

Over half of the overseas tourists who come to the UK each year will visit one of the UK's parks or gardens, making horticulture a key part of the UK's brand image for tourists.

Furthermore, gardening is not restricted to "oldies." "Gardening appears to be growing in popularity among younger generations in recent years, thanks to popular gardening television programmes such as the Big Allotment Challenge and Love Your Garden" - Key Note.  There are many organaisations like Young Horts. 

I would advise the BBC to back down because we're digging in, and this one is going to run and run. Come and join Nigel on Twitter tonight. 

A Tour of the Spring Garden

When I was a kid, gardening was something done by middle-aged or elderly men: my dad and Percy Thrower, resplendent in waistcoat. (Or was that Geoffrey Smith?).
















I became attuned to the annual rhythm of the garden and Dad trying out new things: veg in the back garden; not growing veg; sweet peas; Dad digging out a circular flower bed in the front which was filled first with dahlias and then some mixed roses ("Uncle Walter and co" was how they were described).  A blazing trail of Superstar, the vermilion rose which everyone had to have in the 70s.

But I didn't become a gardener myself until about four years ago when we finally cleared the back garden, as has been well documented in my blog. Here's what it used to look like.

 This year is particularly exciting because I have been remodelling my biggest border and trying out some new plants.

Plant theatre (Sarah Raven)

I am unashamed about liking the country cottage look, and having a north facing back garden means that sun loving perennials struggle. But plants like salvias, penstemons, holly hocks, fox gloves and dianthus thrive.

This year I've boosted my early summer garden by adding alliums for the first time and a few wallflowers.  I've added some Canterbury bells and scented stocks for the first time. And as always I have containers filled with later daffodils and tulips and I bring them down from the shed area when they're in bloom. I finally have my "plant theatre" which at the moment has purple primulas.

ig border on left, view towards garage and shed

In the big border I removed a couple of plants which were past their best, a very thuggish penstemon Garnet and a sickly cordyline, and this created some room for a showpiece plant which will probably be a very theatrical fuchsia. I've also added a new rose, Olivia Rose Austin.

In a few weeks time the fence and obelisk will be a riot of soft colour with three Clematis Montana doing their thing and Rambling Rector getting ready to ramble.  It's his third year and so far he has not rambled far. I am trying to contain him to make sure he doesn't overpower the fence.

View towards the conservatory

I love my few trees: the hawthorn is full of cheeping birds all day, waiting for their turn on the bird feeders. The cherry and plum trees are both heavy with buds. There is an old apple tree too which leans on the garage roof. The apples are always inedible but the blossom is delicious.

Tomorrow I'll show you the front garden.

The spring garden

As the tulips and narcissus bow to a close, the garden is looking busier than usual at this time of the year and it's all down to my new policy of not digging out the border for winter.

Inspired by some of the gardening writers, who said leave the perennials and enjoy their wintry shapes, plus, do not dig the soil, I left everything untouched. There were a couple of surprises. Two trailing fuchsias, bought last summer and supposedly tender, survived.  The winter casulties included my most prolific duo, a salvia and and a perennial nemesia. I got rid of two phygelius because they had started to become thugs.
 
The daffodils were stunning this year, particularly "Dick Walden," and the delicate pheasant eye narcissus.

But the tulips didn't float my boat. I'd ordered two red types and the plan was to put them in the border at the front of the house, fringed with muscari and forget-me-nots I'd grown from seed. But when I started planting them, I realised I didn't have enough red bulbs for the space, so I changed plans and put them in the back garden instead. The orange and purple bulbs originally destined for the back went in the front border, and somehow didn't work very well because I'd also had some "free" purple bulbs and a few white ones which were different heights and colours, and it looked messy.

I've decided to treat my tulips as annuals and have a new display every year, which gives me the flexibility of using the containers for more plants during the summer.

Meanwhile, in the back garden, I've put in some new plants - monarda, which can tolerate most conditions, and nerines for a late summer display. I'm hoping that gladioli will be the new showstopper, having decided that dahlias and my garden don't really get on.

The two clematis Montana have been outstanding so I added a third, and I think this may be the year that honeysuckle Serota finally delivers on flowers. I've planted "Rambling Rector" to scramble up the obelisk and was pleasantly surprised to find the perennial sweetpeas all reviving to do the same.

Dicentra "bleeding heart" really went for it this year

The main colour theme is pink and purple with a few white highlights

The hawthorn is also in full flush. It always reminds me of David Hockney, whose exhibition we saw a couple of years ago. It featured lots of paintings of hawthorn, like big curly caterpillars, and apparently he adores it, waits for the flowering and then rushes out into the countryside with his easel.

The garden in July

I'm horrified to see that my last post was as long ago as May, and then it was "The garden in May." Now I am back with "The garden in July."

I am very pleased with it this year; the raised bed border has certainly bushed out. No gaps now!

New this year were sweet peas, scrambling up an obelisk;  (still to flower); a jasmine; two more salvias to attract bees, and various additions including dianthus Doris, fuchsia Display, dahlias, love-in-the-mist and amberboa Sweet Sultan.

The raised bed border is mostly pink and mauve with touches of white.

Meanwhile my hot border, on the other side of the garden, has been a bit of a let down so far. I have fewer nasturtiums and cosmos Bright Lights died. Three salvia Hot Lips have gone completely crazy though.

Spot the Difference

We're determined to improve the back garden this year, now that we look out on it from the new conservatory. A number of improvements has been made already. Compare the before with the current "after" :

Before: April 2011. The border was cleared of Leylandii trees

After: March 2012. New fence; border dug and 2 fruit trees planted; edging replaced with sleepers. Patio extended. Garage repainted. Grass replaced with artificial lawn

On the right hand side of the garden we have also had a new fence put up and it has given us quite a lot more border to play with. John did the back breaking digging this weekend. Normally I put pots here but I'm going to get rid of a lot of them and in future plant the bulbs in the borders instead. In the summer I will plant annuals in the right border.

We're very pleased with the artificial grass, laid by Steve at Highfield Landscapes. It's come on a long way since "Astro Turf." You look at samples as if you're buying a carpet. The one we chose is called "Stately Manor." It will last for at least 10 years, and will still look green and lush after a few months of the hosepipe ban. My argument is that I am offsetting the ecological downside of artificial grass with a planting scheme aimed at encouraging butterflies and bees. I've ordered my plants and I'm now eagerly waiting their arrival. The garden is north facing so I have to be realistic about what's achievable. I'm getting some ferns, hostas and ornamental grasses and will grow some of my favourites, penstemons, campanulas, dahlias, Japanese anemones and plenty of cosmos and nicotiana. More photos to follow in a few months! 

March 2012: the "new" border 

Plans for the Garden

One of my favourite pastimes is listening to a podcast of Gardeners' Question Time while I make my regular journey from London to Swindon. My imagination goes into overdrive, mentally planting my new border. Yesterday the Parkers' catalogue came and I started making notes of the shrubs and perennials I would be buying.

The border (left) was cleared a few months ago, sleepers put round the edge and a couple of fruit trees planted. My plan is for a pink, white and purple colour scheme. I want to try to have all-year-round interest so there will be some shrubs, ornamental cream hostas, Japanese anemones and a honeysuckle on the fence. I'm going to plant a lot of my favourites: penstemons, salvias, cosmos (my mum sent me some seed from hers), dianthus and dahlias.

I'll soon be filling my "Monty Don" compost box and using my dream shed for all my potting up. I wish I had a "before" shot but these are the "afters". The shed now has a new roof, a cute half-timbered appearance and new shelves and staging. John put in strip lighting and hooks for all the tools.

Meanwhile spring is pushing winter out of the way. The bulbs in the front garden - hyacinths, tete-a-tete, tulips - are all out. The thorny old hedge has started to get its yellow mantle. And helleborus niger is having a bit of a moment (below).

Uproar in the allotments

If you think Facebook and Twitter are the current big thing, well you're sadly mistaken. It would seem that gardening, allotments, bee keeping and chickens are what's hip and happening. I've lost track of the number of people who have mentioned they indulge in one or more of the above. I would love one of those cute little Egloos, but so would Molly (pitured). Bee keeping will be my retirement pastime. Let's hope bees are not extinct by then.

Gardening does delight me, or rather, the buying of plants and containers and the photographing of results. Digging and weeding is less appealing, as is pest control (spraying, slug removal etc). My gran used to snip the slugs in half with a pair of scissors but I'm far too squeamish for that. I'd like to say that I use nematodes but you can't beat a good handful of slug pellets.

With gardening becoming so trendy, there is naturally quite a lot of snobbery. Apparently a lot of the old guard, who use Latin names when snapdragons would suffice, are up in arms about the new format of Gardener's World, where we are now shown how to sow seeds and create raised beds, and, gasp, there was even a feature on gnomes.

My solution is very simple. Keep Gardener's World the way it's always been, for the serious gardeners, and branch out with some new gardening progammes for novices. There will be more of us growing vegetables, so why not get in early?
My vote is to bring back Charlie Dimmock. We haven't seen nearly enough of her lately. Just Charlie, though. We don't need Tommy Walsh, decking or water features. A few veg, some raised beds and how to grow blueberries and goji berries would be very appealing. And maybe one or two gnomes.