The new hour-long GW.

[shovetheholly]

What are your thoughts?

I am really loving the new format. I like the way they are focusing not just on huge, uber-wealthy properties but on some small back gardens. I like the mix of stunningly beautiful, expertly-achieved gardens and amateur eccentricity. And I particularly like the focus back on technique, and doing things. It's lovely to see Carol Klein treated by the camera like the expert she is, instead of a gurning idiot pointing out that the top of the plant is called the "leaves" and the bottom is called the "root". I also find myself really warming to Adam Frost.

[bookbook]

On a side note, I really want Crocosmia Harlequin now... :)

[Lorelei76]

Sea - yes, I went to an open day but there's a range of issues - transport, storage etc - and the external factor in my case is a mum in not great health about 90 mins away. I'm going to need to spend more weekends there.

[bookbook]

Well I have just watched yesterdays programme on iplayer.
Yes , we can all have a rockery , but thats a bit by the by.
Adam Frost - enjoying this bit generally, but those beds with sleepers and fresh manure. Look a great idea, but firstly, how much did those sleepers cost , and secondly, how on earth is the rotted down straw and manure removed when it is finished with? Did I miss something ?

[crazydaisies]

Bookbook Crocosmia Harlequin is fabulous! I put it in my garden last year as a small plant and it's tripled in size. Wonderful combination of the yellow and orange too. Very striking.
I would love to find the corms to save a bit of money.

[Kr1stina]

www.dutchbulbs.co.uk/plant-0008777-dc-1/crocosmia-harlequin/

Obviously out of stock now but available in January

[shovetheholly]

book - I was wondering that too! If he is intending to stand in there and pitch fork it up and over that edge, then he is going to hurt like hell by the end of about 20 minutes! And smell even worse. Surely you want removable sides?!

Timely reminder on this week's show that I need to get my sweet peas on! These really struggle from a spring sowing at my plot, so I'm going to try an autumn one instead.

I had that Blackadder episode in my head through that segment on the npt-so-very Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells.

[bookbook]

I've never done sweet peas over winter , mmmm
I couldn't see removable sides, looking at how he showed the corners, but maybe there is and we didn't see it. Nevertheless, that won't help anyone trying to build one!

[Brillig]

Iirc Monty wasn't a jewellery designer - his wife Sarah was the creative one. He was the sales side of it and his real interest was always in gardening. He's always said he owes everything to his wife and that she's the one who held it all together when the business folded.

Must say I can't really focus on the Adam Frost segments, I'm just too wildly jealous of that beautiful house, the massive outbuildings and enormous garden and find myself wondering how much a Georgian house with land in Lincolnshire would cost

[bookbook]

how about these? Brillig if you have the spare million..
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-62412170.html
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-60579155.html
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-61885034.html

I have to stop , and get busy, not browse on there!

[shovetheholly]

Ah, thanks for the clarification brillig

I would settle for a two-room shack as long as I could have those gardens book! Wow!!

[Kr1stina]

book - I was wondering that too! If he is intending to stand in there and pitch fork it up and over that edge, then he is going to hurt like hell by the end of about 20 minutes! And smell even worse. Surely you want removable sides?!

There's an easy answer - staff

[Kr1stina]

Month has two full time gardeners, so I'd imagine that Adam has at least one.

And I agree that Adam is being lined up to be the main presenter . GW has a long tradition of using the main presenters garden , it goes back to Percy thrower. When Adam frost was a lad he worked at Barnsdale with Geoff Hamilton

< realises that no one except holly is old enough to remember these people >

[shovetheholly]

I went to Barnsdale last year, on a special pilgrimage!! It was surprisingly emotional, I even shed a bit of a tear at his statue in the garden.

I tell you what, after washing down my greenhouse yesterday, I am feeling every year of my advancing age! Ooof. I should probably start doing stretches or taking some kind of supplement!!

[bookbook]

I am even older, so yes I remember. I went to Barnsdale a few years ago. I couldn't take advantage properly as I had twisted my knee badly the day before on a walk around Rutland Water. As earlier upthread, my favourite is still Geoffrey Smith.
And don't get me started about aches and pains - I have a lot of wheelbarrowing manure ahead of me this next week

[shovetheholly]

I remember what Geoffrey Smith looked like, but I don't remember the programmes. Had a quick look on Youtube at an old episode of 'Mr Smith's Fruit Garden' and it's packed with really practical information - he takes things properly slowly and explais everything to help beginners. I can see why you like him book.

I do think GW sometimes rushes things now, and the observations are often sort of generalised ones about the loveliness of nature, rather than practical ones. To which I say, with Molesworthian gusto, CHIZ.

[Brillig]

I went to Barnsdale a few years ago and Geoff Hamilton's son was on the tills when I bought a plant He's very like his dad. I think he runs the place now.

I remember when Percy Thrower was the Blue Peter gardener!

[shovetheholly]

YES! Percy Thrower! My goodness, that takes me back. Do you remember the time the Blue Peter garden was vandalised? And all the fish were poisoned with petrol? Percy Thrower said the people who did it were 'mentally ill'!! Things have moved on a bit since then.

I don't even know if there is a BP garden these days??

[Kr1stina]

< hi fives all the other old gimmers>

[bookbook]

. I remember Percy Thrower - he was still presenting Gardeners World when I started gardening !
oh, I just had to go and look at you tube and Geoffrey - I had forgotten how much I liked his presenting style .

[Callmegeoff]

I really like the hour long program, Adam Frost is my Favourite bit. at his mahoosive plot and house. (Autocorrect made that manhood, snigger )

I wonder if he will take over, I'm a bit bored not of Monty but his garden.

I remember Percy Thrower and Geoff Hamilton and the Blue Peter Vandals. Old Gimmer.

[shovetheholly]

I want to high five you all back, but I am way too stiff this morning!

I laughed out loud at Adam Frost's 'manhood'. I don't think I'll ever see that segment in the same way again!!

[Kr1stina]

There's always someone who lowers the tone

< peers over specs >

[bookbook]

I will be honest - I do not hanker after his house and plot ( regardless of hrmmm his 'manhood' ). I like a house I can keep warm and is easy to clean and maintain, and a garden that stretches me a bit workwise, but doesn't give me worries about keeping on top of it. I would like a house that had a big enough garden to grow my vegetables though :)

[funnyperson]

Erm... I remember Percy Thrower. I still have his book and still refer to it.

I have simply failed at the acquisition of a wonderful house and garden. However I put this down to lack of ambition and vision. Had I thought about it at a young enough age, I would have aimed for an Elizabethan manor or possibly Lutyens home with a walled garden, orchard and Victorian or Edwardian greenhouse.

But does this mean that only those with serious wealth and big houses and gardens can become regular presenters on Gardeners World?

[shovetheholly]

book - I agree with you about the house. I don't think I could cope with a bigger one than my tiny and very cheap current house, and not will it be necessary once I have found space for more books . Plus, I'm at the limit of boredom with indoor chores as it is. But I do have eyes that are far, far bigger than my trowel when it comes to gardening and land!! Yet in reality I know that you are wise and right - I am probably at the limit of what I can manage with an allotment and my garden - which is probably, what, less than a quarter of an acre in total?

However, I do think that most of us are gardening on the land we have in a way that is very, very intensive - I suspect that were I somehow to be gifted an acre (never gonna happen, so we are now firmly in fantasy land), I would manage parts of it far less intensively, making it more do-able. But maybe I am just being over-optimistic about how low low maintenance gardening would be!

funny - I've seen pictures of your garden and I don't think you can be classed as any kind of failure. It is wonderful. I am not sure that having a huge house can really be a life goal either - at the end of the day, however much property wealth someone has, and however securely it is tied up, they're just a brief tenant on it, the same as the rest of us.

For GW - unless I am misremembering, Joe Swift has a small garden - in London, though, I imagine, so it may not be a "cheap" house after all!! One person I'd really like to see on there is Mark Diacono. He's young, energetic, funny, and a smallholder somewhere in the SW (Otter Farm).