Gardeners World - What a shame

[Chumpfriend]

Am I being unreasonable to think that Gardener’s World has jumped the shark?

It’s honestly a travesty of what went before and in no way makes anyone with a modest garden feel capable of creating a garden or delivers any meaningful advice.

There are BBC tropes and messaging rammed down your throat and literally nothing that relates to any ordinary gardener at this time of year.

The Beechwood Garden is a shadow reference to the old GW but I’m so disappointed at such a lost opportunity to make people feel like they can have a go at growing stuff.

Geoff Hamilton may be turning in his grave.

I like the big gardens. They are beautiful and inspiring. I don’t need to see lots of pokey town gardens like my own.

Tonight is a special on the new Queen Elizabeth memorial garden in Regents Park. I am looking forward to that one.

This thread inspired me to go and watch Monty’s French Gardens and Monty’s Italian gardens, and the India episode of Around the World in Eighty Gardens on YouTube, and I’ve realised I’ve begun to find Monty very irritating as presenter, having previously had no particularly strong feelings about him one way or another.

The programmes are delightful in themselves, but after yet another shot of Monty driving a Deux Chevaux through cypresses or sitting on a café terrasse in his ‘Englishman Abroad’ straw hat and rumpled linens, I started thinking ‘You vain thing’ and the scene with him almost literally turning up his nose at the 1950s English style of a garden somewhere in northern India, which clearly offended his taste, just made me roll my eyes.

Maybe we need a feature on where to find lovely containers without having to sell a kidney.
Bunny Guinness is very keen on a bargain although she doesn't do cheap. She does value for money. She won't tell you where to find a £50 frost-proof terracotta pot but she will tell you how to find a £500 f-ptp for only £400 (I just made up that example, but you get the drift).
Here's one of her videos. She also has her Gardening Club which can get you discounts. I've not joined; I don't know much more about it than Bunny's sales pitch.

Totally with you on the pots. Even the “ just pick up distressed zinc that nobody wants “ pots are ££££ -for granny’s old stew pot. 😳

But how useful is that?

We’re in a massive cost of living crisis that is about to get worse whilst living on a planet that is burning with wildlife that is struggling.

The BBC has a duty to reflect that in a gardening programme not fantasy, particularly if we want to have gardening as a viable pastime for the next generation of gardeners.

It’s enjoyable to see beauty for an hour. Yes, I don’t have a big garden, but I still get ideas and inspiration.

I like Gardeners' World. I get good tips about growing things. Good ideas for plants to grow. I enjoy seeing Monty's garden. I love seeing viewers' gardens, ranging from a house full of interesting house plants, through balconies (I've followed The Cloud Gardener ever since he appeared on Gardeners' World.) All sizes of gardens from tiny to big. I like seeing famous gardens like Vita Sackville West's one. I've forgotten the name. I like Advolly's history segments. I like the people who are obsessed with a particular plant.

My garden is tiny but I get a lot of pleasure from it and enjoy seeing gardens of all sizes.

I'm sure if the viewing figures get low due to people not liking it it'll come to an end, but I hope that doesn't happen as I watch it every week plus the Winter specials/compilations. I'd really miss it. I think many people would.
Not everyone will like it but that applies to any TV programme.

Another thing I’d like advice on is how to get garden compost without buying endless expensive plastic bags of it. Not everybody has the space or facilities for a compost heap. It’s just assumed you can magic “garden compost” out of thin air.

Basically, there isn't a way to get compost other than either make it (compost bins) or you buy it. A compost bin can be no bigger than a wheelie bin and still benefit your garden

It takes time and a good blend of green and brown waste, it's not something anyone can "magic up". The things I put in the compost now will go on the raised beds next year.

Here's a beginner's guide from the RHS

We’re in a massive cost of living crisis that is about to get worse whilst living on a planet that is burning with wildlife that is struggling.

Telling people about a garden that's free to visit in the largest city in the country fits with the cost of living crisis, doesn't it?

The advice on GW has been environmentally conscious for years now, and they were early champions of rejecting peat based compost as well as native planting and drought resistant planting, all of which look at helping the environment and wildlife.

I know what you mean - my previous garden was a very small paved back yard - so I mostly planted in pots and had a dalek composter out in the back lane. I bought loads of bags of compost over the years and used the dalek compost as a supplement, and would mix up last year's and this year's compost to reuse it. But it was still an expensive bit of gardening for me.

I've now got a slightly bigger garden, but still no room for a real compost heap - so I've got a hot composter on the drive - it still doesn't produce much...

It’s not free if you don’t live in London. It’s a very expensive day out.

If you have a car some council recycling centres have skips of compost (that they've made from people's green waste) for people to help themselves.

I hear you. I used to love him and found him a warm comfort at the end of a hard week but his aggressive "I don't answer gardening questions!" on whatever social media he was trying to big himself up on started the decline in my admiration. He's heading towards the insufferable end of the spectrum now.

Wow really, I didn’t know that. Sounds good although I’d be a bit worried about there being waste I wouldn’t want in the garden( weeds, diseased vegetation etc)

It's supposed to be that their compost heaps are so big they get very hot which kills any bad things. So they say. Might be worth trying a bag or two with something not too precious, if you're able to get any.

A feature on where to find lovely (and preferably massive!) pots that don't require the sale of a kidney would be most appreciated @SherbertsHerberts!

We have a few gorgeous ones we purchased years ago from a nursery that didn't seem bothered about getting top prices. And on his travels DH once found a stunning faux lead miniature bath (about 120cm long x 80cm high) in an interiors shop that he brought home to surprise me. I was delighted to discover the same one as part of their display in the Highgrove shop in Tetbury (we obviously have good taste!). When we moved to our probate cottage in 2024, a few lovely vintage pots were left behind by the vendors.

We also had a huge pair (1m high) of much loved Errington Reay salt glazed urns picked up for just £80 on eBay when we lived in the West Midlands in 2015. One had a broken handle, but they looked amazing in our walled garden planted up with large ceanothus. Sadly, in the same 2024 move (long distance from Wales back home to England), our removers (acquaintances of DH) let us down over the size/number of Luton vans we needed and - despite me repeatedly insisting it was vitally important (to me, obvs) that the Errington Reay urns were somehow shoehorned in, they were left behind. A catalogue of disasters with cars/hire vehicles meant we were unable to go back to retrieve them and instead we had to arrange for a local auction to collect and sell them (for just £40 😭) ahead of our buyers moving in. DH said "They're only pots, we'll find more!" Easier said than done and we'd be looking at several hundred each even if I found any the same!

So what? Nothing is accessible to everyone everywhere. Something accessible and free for the largest urban population in the UK is worth talking about.

You come across as just looking for reasons to nitpick.

Nothing can be of interest and of relevance to every single viewer
I think GW does a reasonable job of trying to cater to a diverse audience. There are bits I can take or leave, but I recognise it's usefulness.

I guess the amount of usefulness is the point. How useful is it to your average beginner gardener who doesn’t have a large plot or a lot of money?

I’d have been gutted!!!

Exactly! Will see what I can find out.

A lot of the compost you buy nowadays contain council recycled garden waste.

Many years ago i did some work at a charity that collected council garden waste and made their own massive heaps. I had a lovely day picking plastic out of the new arrivals, sadly many contained dog crap!
they could get so hot inside that they posed a fire-risk, and you can feel the heat radiating from them several metres away.

Urgh @Ifailed , dirty bastards, you wouldn't want to toast your marshmallows against that heat 😡

That said I’d rather have dog poo than black spot spores or bind weed roots.

There are plenty of features on GW about gardening with climate change and the adaptations in plants that will be needed, Monty Don has often mentioned it. For years the programme has had features on gardening for wildlife,attracting pollinators, hedgehogs etc and Monty has banged on hundreds of times about the importance of having even the tiniest of ponds, I've seen a "pond in a pot" type of thing very often.
So you can hardly accuse GW of not reflecting those concerns.

As for the cost of living crisis, it needs to be remembered that in no way affects everybody. There are huge numbers of people with plenty of spare cash for leisure activities. Theatres, expensive restaurants, shopping centres, garden shows and garden centres are full of people splashing the cash. People like to spend on their gardens. You can make whole borders cheaply from seed and GW has done that in the past, but GW is not simply supposed to be how to garden on the cheap and why should it be.

As pp have said, I don't want to see a programme filled with tiny gardens made by amateurs, done on the cheap. Nor do I want to see one more self filmed segment from somebody's garden, I hated that in covid. I want to hear professionals and experts in horticulture and design, as well as highly informed amateurs, see their creations, learn and be inspired by them, marvel at what they can achieve.