Beechgrove Garden v Gardeners' World

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I much prefer Beechgrove for a bit of easy telly watching, it's content is more relevant to me as they seem to split about 50/50 between vegetable and decorative gardening and their plot sizes reflect most people's gardens.

GW just seems so unrelatable now. It's skewed far more towards decorative plants and though aware they introduced viewers videos from their gardens during lockdown and have continued, the vast majority are many times larger than anything most viewers will ever own, beyond the point of aspirational unless you were to win the lottery.

I like both and watch them every week.

I find Beechgrove more practical and relatable as you say, and I particularly like when they help people with the design of their new build gardens....plus their tips on vegetable growing.

I enjoy watching Gardeners World just for interest really. I like the tours of bigger gardens and the variety of segments. Longmeadow is really a series of smaller gardens so although I'll never be gardening on that scale I may get an idea that I can replicate in miniature.....even in a pot!

I like beechgrove as their weather is more relatable to me than the sunny south. And their winter advice more realistic.

I Watch both. I stopped GW after Geoff Hamilton died and a Monty took over. I remember George making an obelisk out of old timber and a ball cock, painted to look like metal. Monty bought several obelisks at about £700 each, and I decided his way of gardening was not for me! However, he seems to have come down to earth a bit now, so I watch every week. I like the viewer's gardens.
beechegrove is about 60 miles from me, so the weather is more relevant.
the only gripe I have about gardening programmes is every week we are shown how to dig a hole or how to sow a seed tray 😬

Beechgrove for me. The veg advice, climate relevance, and much more small-scale and allotment stuff. The big GW gardens are pretty but I'm never going to do that sort of thing, whereas tests of which tomatoes do well in a cooler, northern summer is of practical use.

I like the practical experiments they do on BG, such as the comparison of potato’s this week. GW never does things like,that.

Ooh I've not heard of beechgrove but it sounds like something I'd enjoy. I'll give it a look.

My favourite programme would be entirely made up of the viewer's gardens section of GW every week - just 30 mins a week of normal people showing me parts of their garden that they love.

I tried watching Beechgrove a few times but didn't warm to it at all so stopped.

We're huge fans of Monty and love watching him on GW, but personally I find many of the short clips of viewers' gardens a bit irritating. I'd rather see large, inspirational gardens than the smaller ones.

I do agree that often there's repetition with regards to telling you how to do obvious stuff though.

@ohfook, you can watch the last episode of Beechgrove on iPlayer.

I watch both but I find Beechgrove more practical for me as I live in Scotland. GWs seasons aren't the same here at all.

They both have their faults and merits

interesting on Friday that the segment of Monty suggesting different planting and selection of plants to suit the new environment and not trying to keep artificially lit and heated was followed by a chap on his allotment using grow lights and plastic everywhere on his allotment

my dad’s allotment was full of everything whereas everyone featured on Gw seems to lose half the area to walkways and raised beds

I've never heard of Beechgrove garden do thank you for drawing it to my attention.

I'm likely to be preferring Gardeners world because it is closer to me so the weather and seasons will be more similar. Plus I don't really care about growing veg, I'm all about decorative flowering plants. I find the home videos annoying but I like the 'real garden' segments professionally filmed.

Much prefer beechgrove. I do watch both. But gw has got very arty and aspirational. Lots of shots of dogs ( which I used to enjoy when it was Nigel interrupting Monty's demo, but now they've cottoned on that viewers like it, there are blooming dogs everywhere. Plus wafty shots of flowers without giving their names. Glimpses of Monty through waving grassy stems, handwoven baskets to store his garlic bulbs in (in his "potting shed" the size of my house).
I used to like the visits to viewers' gardens but again there are too many, the producers are choosing either quirky or impractical. There is very little relevant gardening advice left in the program. (No, Monty, I don't have a walled garden or somewhere to overwinter my lemon trees).
Give me beechgrove with their tattie trials!
Although. I like Sue in her Swansea garden, and Adam Frost too. Both of them tackling garden problems that are relevant to any garden.

I haven't watched a lot of BG, probably because I'm not a fan. It seems a bit amateur.
I'm not a Monty fan, either. Quite apart from his ridiculous hand-crafted / lentil-weaving ponciness, I don't like the design of Longmeadow and he seems too much of a plantsman rather than a gardener. I think my favourite GW presenter at the moment is Adam Frost. I like him (didn't at first, he's grown on me) and I like his new-garden journey.

I'd watch anything with Adam Frost in. Particularly like seeing his new garden

I love Beechgrove, it's is such a lovely programme. Doesn't take itself so seriously.

I find Gardener's World quite stuffy, and Monty Don really annoys me now. He only shows us things that he likes, not things that actually work, if that makes sense. I don't find Longmeadow inspiring.

I enjoyed GW when Adam Frost was developing his previous garden - his approach is really refreshing, and he isn't afraid of making mistakes.

Reading some of the comments and thinking back to how GW was like, I think it's now more of a Life Style programme for the wealthy rural dweller.

Nothing wrong with that as it still pulls in an audience, but not much use to the typical amateur garden with a small urban garden, about 85% of us.

GW have had some great bits on gardening history with Advolly Richmond, she is amazing and would love to see more of that.

I'm a bit fed up with long meadow though it's beautiful and I'm jealous. I'd like to see more of how you juggle all the things you want from a garden in a smaller space without a dedicated garden for different aspects. I like the viewers gardens as I love people watching and seeing people's interests. I like Adam and his garden development. Beach Grove is more like GW used to be I think. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Like Monty’s dogs and Adams cats.

GW seem to have landed on their feet with Frances Tophill. She works at a Big House but also has an allotment and is starting her own small garden. So Big, Small, Newbie and allotment all in one package. And - shock, horror - she is going to have a bit of lawn so that gets a thumbs-up from me.
Yesterday's programme featured her tackling an invasive plant (bamboo) which I'm sure more people will relate to than some of Monty's problems (e.g. where to overwinter their lemon tree ).

Rekha has a new garden, too, but we haven't heard from her in a while.

I watched gardeners world when it was Toby and really enjoyed it. Had a good mix of education and constructing spaces that actually reflect real gardens as well as the Joe's allotment and also garden design. We stopped watching when Monty came back as it felt like a lifestyle programme that just repeated the same jobs over again in a garden space which is not massively relevant to most of us.

I did see Frances last night though and really liked it- first time for years I've watched a whole episode. It was much more like the format we'd really enjoyed with Toby and I suddenly wondered whther i should try again. Was actually a little disappointed when they said it would be back to usual next week.

Agree with PP that if they feature a plant/flower it would be helpful to name it.

I also want to see real life and where they store their tools and their wheelie bins.

No way would it have been 5 minutes to strim and 5 minutes to rake the front garden meadow. That would definitely not include the time taken to get the tools out of the (invisible) shed and fill the (invisible) brown bin.

The "small garden on a budget" section of Garden Made Perfect was very relatable.

I like watching GW as a lifestyle programme and don't find it too annoying and do pick up tips.

But Beechgrove is so much more relateable for actual gardening - I've got a small garden and I just can't fit in all the plants I want to after watching GW.

Beechgrove for me.
It's practical and the presenters all seem like real people with real gardens.
I occasionally watch GW butdon't like many of the presenters including MD.

Monty Don doesn't seem to enjoy being the main presenter anymore (if he ever did). Don't blame him really, when you see the over-familiar fan comments he has to deal with, but it does bring the programme down a bit for me. He always looks so uncomfortable during the coverage from Chelsea as well.