Gardeners World

[Houseplanter]

Is it me or is this way past its best.

I want to know how to DO things.. what to plant, where, when. How to propagate.

Monty we don't have gardens big enough to leave to go wild and mow a path through..

I don't want to see endless videos of other peoples gardens either.

You need to watch Beechgrove Garden, it's on BBC Scotland.

I love the videos of people's gardens.
Way better than the huge gardens that they used to visit a few years ago.
And, to have an area of longer grass, you only need ,say, 70cm x 2 m. The bess and other insects will love it.

I like GW but as a pp said, Beechgrove is more practical. Tbh I think Youtube has taken over for any specific "how to" content you might want. GW is more of a general magazine format with a few seasonally appropriate "how to" bits mixed in. I do find the items on large gardens less interesting tbh, but they clearly try to have a balance of content so there's something to please most gardening enthusiasts. I enjoy the videos of people's gardens (they are usually v short anyway), and I particularly like the visits to "real people's gardens" (vs the ones with Carol walking around the gardens of some stately home).

I've watched it for years but am so bored with it now. It went downhill when dear old Geoff Hamilton died. Monty is a nice guy, but I think he is out of touch, and am so sick of seeing him move plants, dig holes, sow seeds every blooming week. I quite like the visits to ordinary people's gardens though. Beechgrove is the better programme, practical, and I love the trials they do, trialling different potatoes or tomatoes. Bit more down to earth.

Ah Geoff Hamilton was great..in those days it was all practical stuff. I remember him making 'artificial stone' to coat old sinks with and my dear old dad having a go.

I want them to do a segment showing old clips. Not from last year which we’ve all seen but from decades ago.

I agree, I don’t want to see endless viewers gardens. The sections on how to do things are by far the most useful.

It pains me to say this but I think you're right. I prefer nutters' gardens to viewers' gardens every time.

Maybe I should start a thread on favourite nutters from the past. Anyone else remember the gooseberry club painstakingly searching for the largest gooseberry - as I recall weighed in grains?

Beechgrove is what GW used to be, but as I'm on the south coast it's usually a month too late for me 😞

@MontyDonsBlueScarf that gooseberry guy was the best ever freak of the week 😂

I've got Geoff Hamilton's DVD and it's my go to place for advice.
I loved GW when Geoff presented it... advice, tips, short cuts, how to do things properly.

It's now a videodrome of other people's gardens which I like , but there's so much of it and much of it is 'look what I've done with a collection of banana palms and cyclamens.'

I'm always agog at the planting of greenhouse grown seedlings that are brought out to plant at the exact time that we're watching... we haven't all got a greenhouse and we didn't know to sow at the time!

I'm fed up of The Jewel Garden, The Bog Garden etc... as no one has gardens that resemble Monty's.
I'm also fed up with the very long segments of fancy pants gardens where a presenter wafts , languidly through a grassy shrubbery pontificating about textures, structures, the ideas of previous famous gardeners ( no longer relevant due to climate change,) the symmetry of plants and the talented landscape(!)

I just want to know what I can grow and how to grow it in my modest patch. Geoff knew this.
Monty doesn't.
I know that he's attributed various parts of his garden to try to resemble our gardens but it doesn't work.
He's had a rethink, and rightly so, about plants that have to be dug up and placed in a greenhouse or shed and that is right.

Most of us don't have that luxury.

Beechgrove it is.

Freak of the week 😄😄😄 what a way to be remembered, I should be so lucky!

I really like the viewers' gardens, I find them interesting.

These days there are so many clips online if you want to know how to do something, Gardeners World website has hundreds.

But I do think Monty's garden is too big, I prefer when it focuses on Adam Frost's place.

There was an interesting segment when Frances got an allotment and she was dealing with weeds and setting it up, then it seemed to stop.
I want to see real garden solutions, flooded lawns, tree suckers, acid soil, rock-hard earth, ground elder....
I do like the GW bingo of vermiculite, and seeing the dogs and Adams cat.

I quite like the quietness of Monty's segments, but his garden often looks breezy and cold which takes the relaxing edge off it for me.

I enjoy seeing other viewers gardens though.

@Houseplanter Decades ago I remember Geoff Hamilton making a parking space on his front lawn by filling egg boxes with concrete and putting them under some turf. My Mother and & laughed and laughed. But He was a very nice and practical man so apart from that I agree . Speaking as one who has a little terrace smaller than a lot of people will have a dining table I do think Monty's beautiful garden is lovely to look at but not v. practical for me.

I don't remember the car park but I can imagine. I learnt so much from him, and later Alan Titchmarsh. I like Monty Don, just can't relate to his garden

I’m not saying I don’t like Monty’s segments. I really do. Those bits (whoever may be presenting) are what I watch for. I don’t want to see endless viewers gardens though, particularly since they’re rarely useful. And I really really don’t want to see repeats from last series since Ive seen them all and in the days of iPlayer and catch up, it’s lazy tv. We’ve all seen it

Exactly this. Though a compilation of nutters/freaks from the past would have its attractions....

I felt that other viewers gardens were a novelty during lockdown but I fast forward through them on catch up, apart from the sisters who had Downs Syndrome who are just wonderful - I shed a tear when they broke the news of the death of one of the girls. I do wish they’d show a clip every once in a while of Geoff Hamilton.

I have to admit I’m getting bored of the same old clips of viewers gardens on the south coast - inevitably some gay guy in a tropical shirt showing us his palms and banana trees. Not all of us live in the dry sunny south.

I hear you @PauliesWalnuts

Completely agree

Who is GW aimed at? What age group/ experience level? Maybe it is trying to cover too many demographics?

I'd like a show with practical timely tips, ideas and inspiration. No waffle.

I don’t really watch it, and I love gardening and should really be the target audience. I find Monty soothing, but I want practical stuff about soil and planting and pruning. All these good news stories of other people’s gardens were nice in lockdown when we were disconnected, but now I don’t care unless someone has done something genuinely interesting and skilled with their garden.

You are right, it's airy fairy now and they've milked the viewers clips because they are cheap and easy fillers.

I have found my people!

Can't stand Monty. Geoff Hamilton was great. I don't watch GW at all now.

My favourite bit is the bird song at the very beginning followed by monty or Adam’s gentle voice.

I don’t want to see viewers gardens. I do want more plant along stuff. I’d like them to say “next week we are going to be planting xxx so if you want to plant along with us make sure you have x,y and z”