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.

Monty’s garden is eye candy but hardly relatable to most of the population. I only have a backyard, and an allotment so I find his veg gardening tips are useful. Adam Frost is definitely more relatable. I like the snippets of gardening history presented by Adwole Richards ( I think). Frances Tophill’s allotment- oh dear, on my plot she’d have received a notice to improve or quit by now.

I didn't realise what it was missing but you're right @user4750 and @Girliefriendlikespuppies, it's the practical advice. I have a garden that was a bit of a blank slate but now I'm here, I don't know where to start.

Listen to GQT on Radio 4

The thing is, that relatable, useful shows like Beechgrove simply don't pull in the viewing figures. You can definitely see that they're trying to be a bit more relatable, but it's mostly just escapism.

That's why I watch it anyway - on a Friday evening, after a busy week, that moment when you can hear the birdsong, see the lovely dogs pottering about, then Monty's 'hello'. Heaven! I can get all the practical info I need online.

Yes, I think it's past its best too, and I've been watching since the Percy Thrower days. Too much in the way of redesigning entire borders in a whopping great garden, and far too much use of improbably expensive (and difficult to get hold of) plant varieties. Far too little in the way of actual gardening, or useful information for those just starting out. It's all very well them showing a clip of how to prune a giant grape vine growing in a huge glasshouse in a walled garden, but most of us don't have one of them, do we?

I do quite like the films of viewers' gardens (a friend has been on once), but only if done by a professional film crew, and only in moderation. Not all that keen on the home-made clips. They were all right in lockdown, but enough already.

I know it's not what it was but did you see the chap with a collection of cacti that looked like bums a few weeks back. DH and I couldn't breathe for laughing.

@flatmop You don't plan to fail, so don't fail to plan!
I like Alexandra Campbell's videos. She tends to do short-ish, easily digestible videos on specific topics but she has done some longer winter compilations recently. She has one called "your start-from-scratch garden design guide". It starts off with examples so you can decide what style appeals to you, then you get practical advice from about 27 minutes in.
The Middle Sized Garden

I used to look forward to a Friday night GW hug, but now I'm just not that bothered. Monty is forever digging something non-descript from one part of the garden and replanting it somewhere else, or shuffling his vermiculite, it's all a bit boring now. I do like Frances if we're looking for replacements. Carol is always entertaining for her unnecessary excitement. But I'm sorry, Adam gets right on my wick 😫

Yes, I dont tend to watch always I spend most of my time watching very detailed allotment content on Youtube.

That was Tony Irons, talking about Lithops! I am acquainted with him, due to my hobby of cacti and succulents, and have met him a few times. Likewise with a chap called Terry Smale who featured a few years ago, talking about Conophytums (related to Lithops). Sadly, he died a few years ago, but he was acknowledged as the Maestro in the UK, I knew him very well as he lived close to me.
i have to say, I’m not a fan of GW these days, and not a fan of Monty either, I’m another who grew up with Percy Thrower, and the lovely Geoff Hamilton, who both related to ‘everyday’ gardening. I only watch if there is something that interests me.

I used to love GW but there's no fun to it, it's become very earnest and dull. As others have mentioned, it's hard to relate to Monty's massive flamboyant garden. It particularly annoys me when he says it's natural to lose a few plants to slugs and snails because its all part of the ecosystem and is to be expected. I've been reduced to tears when an entire tray of carefully nurtured young plants grown from seed have been gnawed to stumps overnight in our modest plot. On the scale of my little garden, it's a big loss but probably not to his!
Beachgrove does seem to have more practical advice and tips about this sort of thing and is more modest and down to earth overall from what I've seen of it.

I record it and fast forward to any bits with Adam in. Ignore the rest of it

I used to watch religiously and also subscribe to the magazine but am also starting to go off it now. Whenever they focus on something practical (I recall there was a good bit about Francis having an allotment and also starting her own small garden from scratch) they never seem to follow it through so you can't really get to grip with the ongoing process/results. Same with seed sowing - there's always a really detailed segment about how to sow, then it skips forward to planting out these beautiful healthy seedlings - never seems to address the bit in them middle which admittedly is boring but it's when all mine perish! Would much rather they took a few different relatable gardens - new build, shady town, windy seaside front garden, medium sized suburban garden for wildlife etc. and actually showed a realistic picture of what to do with them throughout the year

I love a houseplant and have a few succulents, but goodness me he has chosen a peculiar looking variety to have an obsession with. Sorry Lithops :( I'm sure it has it's nuances, but the extreme close up at the start was just too much for me.

I look forward to watching it and am a big Monty fan. He is to the gardening world what Kevin McCloud is to architecture - knowledgeable, poetic, considered and with a sense of history all of which I find so fascinating and appealing. There are other gardening programmes if you just want practical tips.

I saw monty doing a Q&A thing at gardeners world live a couple of years ago. his ability to remain calm and polite whilst being asked exceptionally inane questions by one person in the audience was quite remarkable but clearly being tested 😆

Thank you for the video recommendation @senua I have a book filled with garden plans, The Garden Design Bible, but it's all illustrations and the brilliant plans don't have measurements which is frustrating. It's nice to see similar styles from the book in video.

@Klingfilm just for you, a few pics of my own Lithops taken in October 2018, during their flowering period. I have several trays of a few hundred of them, mostly grown in 2” pots, they don’t grow very large. Some of these are at least 20 years old!

Just a heads up for the freak of the week connoisseurs, this week's compilation includes the moth nutters who take them on their holidays 😁

I’m getting fed up when they keep saying we'll need to adapt our gardens to include more Mediterranean dry desert sun loving plants 🌵Maybe in the south of England they do but not in my Midlands garden that resembles marshland for most of the year due to all the rain we keep getting ! I need them to devote a whole programme to bog garden plants !! I do like Francis as a presenter though !

I'm in my 20s and I love it. I enjoy seeing ordinary people's gardens and picking up affordable tips from them. Also really love the eccentric gardeners.

...but I do find Adam depressing to listen to.

Its aspirational now - which I like. For me, Id prefer it if areas were shown through the year - not just with frost and sun, bit also with grey dreariness, because the best gardens are great year round.

Its not useful for tips, advice, whatever. It would be nice to have (eg) a small lawn that has to be hardwearing, a pond that doesnt look shit and isnt a lake, so something still aspirational but not crazy.

I just asked my friend earlier tonight if she was watching GW. She replied "ooh, yes. The lovely Adam"

I didn't even know he was presenting now. I knew Monty had left, but dear god, could they really not have done better? I think I find the whole thing tedious, repetitive, scripted and borderline mansplaining. Surely the viewing figures have gone down.

Years ago, I subscribed to GW magazine. Obviously, there's a repetitive element to gardening, as we are bound by the seasons. I unsubscribed after two years. Maybe I'm just an old git who is hard to please.

The biggest bits they are missing for me are the same questions we get in here all the time...

• what is this mystery plant? There are ways to pin it down (eg leaf type) they could talk us through

• what is wrong with this plant? They could try to tackle some of the common plants pests and diseases. They only ever seem to mention box caterpillar but everyday people have less and less box.