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.

I love Gardeners World, but I would really like to see gardens at the time of year as the programme is being show. I don't mind being a week behind with sowing etc but when you see gardens in full bloom and the middle of summer when it's a cold wet March or April day, it doesn't help me.
I know people don't like Monty's various garden areas, but I think there are garden owners who do have areas like the bog garden or a dry one, and I think that's helpful for them. The whole programme isn't going to appeal to everyone, but like visiting gardens in real life, there will be elements you take home and try to recreate.

The thing is Monty is a presenter who's presenting a gardening programme. I also think that he's bored with it. I like Adam Frost though, he's a proper gardener and designer. I think that it could do with a makeover. Geoff Hamilton was the best but Alan Tichmarsh did grow in me. I've been watching it for so long that I mostly know what's on each week.

I think they don’t have enough crappy problem areas. If I wasn’t camera shy I’d love to take people round my garden, showing the herb patch that has to be in pots because it’s where the dog wees, and my veg garden which is full of forget me nots and almost completely shaded by next doors trees, and the greenhouse which I stupidly put in a corner, and thus has unreachable brambles growing in the little gap. And the endless pots with unidentifiable stuff. I could go on….and on. They used to have nice beardy man, Nick Bailey, who is a great gardener and has written some fabulous books doing a bit of tackling those issues, but never in enough depth. Adam planted something this week having “already cleared the area of weeds”, but in my garden the weeds come back and sometimes so do the dahlias I forgot were there. So what did he do? I agree that Sues show garden was awful. I like Monty, but I think he’s bored with us , and we with him.

Alan Titchmarsh grew in you?? Are you Jo Stephenson by any chance?

Adam planted something this week having “already cleared the area of weeds”
I felt sorry for Adam and his raspberries. It's obvious that he wanted to have planted them weeks ago but was told by the producer to wait until he was on rota for the cameras to come to his patch. I'll bet he was fuming to be portrayed as disorganised, behind-schedule and giving too-late advice.

I like Nick Bailey a lot too. He is very grounded and relateable in his gardening, and so practical.

I am a novice gardener, but even I am bored by so much of GW now, I feel like I’ve seen so much of it before. My in laws thought me a subscription to the magazine, which I really enjoyed in the first year, but it got very repetitive in the second year, so I asked them not to renew it again.

I’d love to see more relatable content eg this is what I’ve done with my difficult corner, this is how you could a small space that needs to work when you’ve got foxes that piddle everywhere. Or a section about sheds. Or some follow up so that you can follow a journey, what worked and what didn’t etc.

What happened to Frances? She moved into her new place last year (?) with a small garden that had loads of 'problems' and got stuck in starting to tackle them. I thought that was a really interesting start of seeing her slowly bring her garden round but then it stopped and we haven't seen her since.

I don't watch it, got bored with it! Cannot relate to it, especially the 2 acre gardens where some biddy (or her gardeners) has spent the last 40 years on it. I want to see normal town gardens, where you have a mum with 2 kids, a dog, a cat and DH who CBA to do anything in the garden!

The 'feature' gardens do tend to fall into one of 3 camps...

1. As pp says: The massive gardens that an retired, wealthy couple have spent all their time and money working on over the last 20 years or more.
2. The couple that have a million types of petunia
3. The couple that have turned a 5m x 5m courtyard into a tropical jungle with tree ferns and bananas

What about - quite specifically, what to do if you planted 200 tulips last October and they have all come up but the stems are really short which is a shame because you'd planted them specially foor cutting and now you are worried you wasted your time and money because what if they never rebloom and you've just got one year of short blooms?

Or, you know, something more general?

@BatteryPoweredPeacock . I’d have forgotten I planted the tulips , and why, and would frankly just be glad to have something pretty to look at!
The main issue for me is that gardening shows started as how to, slightly aspirational stuff for people in the suburbs and were fronted by trained gardeners like Thrower, Hamilton, Titchmarsh. Monty Don is a lifelong gardener , but of the gentleman amateur variety. He’s not averse to saving money, having been horribly skint at times, but he really is a massive gardening snob , so although I think he wants to be relatable, and relevant, he has space, money, time, Knowledge, “taste” and loads of help to keep Longmeadow shipshape these days. And he doesn’t get it, and neither do his natural allies like Rachel de Thane with her Cotswold walled garden with table decorations that are bigger than my table, altho I’m sure she is lovely. Adam does, and I think moved to his last house and fancy garden in order to be the heir to Monty, but then knew that wasn’t right for him and moved again. Frances does too, and I think she could do something really interesting. I love Carol too, loved her series on other channels last year, but I think she wouldn’t actually be able to tolerate the invasion of privacy.

@Zebracat I have all of those in my garden, plus the bare patches in the 'lawn', the weeds in the patio and drive, the climbers growing into the garage roof....

@BatteryPoweredPeacock commiserations on the tulips, can you cut them anyway and display them like this? https://thediyplaybook.com/how-to-arrange-tulips/

@MontyDonsBlueScarf . Raise you the nonfruiting fruit, no flower flower borders, tiny but rank pond, rotting railway sleeper retaining walls, and non rotting compost.

I would like a whole segment on rats in the outside toilet please.

I loved when Mont’s lovely old dog pottered around with his manky balls in his mouth , the dogs tennis balls I mean. But now it seems to be the rule that every featured gardener has to have a photogenic dog or cat in shot. Stop with the dogs, please, even the lovely Carol has joined in, though I do admit her dog is delightful.

RIP Geoff Hamilton, he really was the best, I remember him covering butler sinks with home made gloop too!

I always feel that Monty has a willing cohort of intern groupies who rush in and finish everything while he goes off and has a cup of tea,or a pint.

And tonight on Gardeners World Rachel heads off to help Omnishambles deal with the rats in her lavvy. Meanwhile Adam investigates the mysteries of zebracats non fruiting fruit, and Monty will be clearing climbers from his blue scarfs namesake’s garage roof.

That made me laugh @Zebracat ! Although I'd like to think it would be Monty helping Omnishambles with the rats because he could just set Patti on them as she's a terrier.

For those who want to get little short bits of advice I can recommend Toby Buckland and Joe Swift's instagram accounts - it's actual gardening in small doses. I tend to watch GW on catch up these days then I can fast forward past the gay couples wearing tropical Hawaiian shirts with their suburban rainforest gardens, and just get to the dirty bits (literally) and jobs to do at the weekend.

I like to see other people's gardens and would love to see how Frances new garden is coming on. I've liked the visits abroad to the block of flats with vegetation in Italy and the abandoned industrial works in Germany. Personally I'd like to see a bit more about practical garden design; creating paths and patios, ponds, removing shrubs/trees etc...

On Ratwatch this week, we have now jammed open the shed door and are now hosting some sort of neighbourhood cat festival.

During meetings I have watched it scurrying about on the decking in front of me so it is very much Not Dead Yet.

Personally I'd like to see a bit more about practical garden design; creating paths and patios, ponds, removing shrubs/trees etc...

Joe Swift is posting a series of videos which cover this, he's doing up his own 'new' garden.

https://www.youtube.com/@JoesCountryGarden

@omnishambles so sorry about your rat problem. We had them in the walls of our house and it sent me crazy. I do know that they are very sensitive to noise, so maybe put a radio on your decking, or one of those deter teenagers things.?

Is Frances having a baby? My mum said that she thought she was. I don’t know where she is getting her information from though! But maybe that’s why she hasn’t been in for a while. Or maybe my mum is completely off beat.

Interesting on the teenager noise deterrent. At tube stations they used to just use classical music - maybe rats would also be put off by that or perhaps some modern discordant classical or that Lou Reed album thats just noise. <ponders>

West Croydon bus station play classical music to deter loitering teenagers too. I was enjoying listening to Mozart today.

Even though I am disappointed every week I still find myself looking forward to Friday evening and Gardener's World.

So far this week has reached an all time low.

Is it really not called Long Meadow? I had no idea!