New TV Series planned - new builders of rock gardens wanted!

[Maggi Young]

A new TV Series  is planned - the makers are looking for people  planning to build a rock garden to get in touch :

Producers at Lion Television who are working on a brand new gardening series with Monty Don,  are looking for people to take part in that series. They would like to speak to individuals who are planning garden transformations, in small to average size plots. As part of the series they would love to include someone who was transforming their small sized garden into a rock garden.

At the moment  Lion are asking people who are planning a garden transformation to get in touch with them directly.  What follows is the message that  they would like to spread as widely as possible:

Do you have an average size garden, but massive design dreams? Are you hoping to makeover the plot into a Mediterranean retreat or a modernist idyll?  Do you plan a grand gothic garden or an elaborate futuristic escape? If so, we want to hear from you.

We’re working on a brand new gardening show for BBC2. Over the course of the series, horticulture and design expert Monty Don will follow amazing garden transformations, lending help and advice at all stages of the renovation, from planning to planting.

So if you’ve got big plans for your small plot, we want to hear from you. To be considered for the series, please send the following information to Rachel.Bailey@liontv.co.uk     –

1) A detailed description of your design idea

2)  Location, measurements and photos of your garden

3) A photo of yourself, and all your contact details.


Many thanks,
Rachel.

[Tim Ingram]

Since no one has commented on this I thought it would be interesting to put a few thoughts. Whenever a group of alpine gardeners get together we tend to bemoan the lack of more interesting and stimulating programmes on gardening on television, presumably because our perspective on gardening is rather more sophisticated and botanical (and individualistic). There seems great validity in this criticism because other aspects of artistic endeavour and Natural History are often given more thoughtful representation on TV. Plants have an interest which is wonderfully expressed in books, and often now on the internet (for example here!), but doesn't seem to work its way onto television, which has the capacity to inform so many more people when done really well. The idea of seeing a programme on the development of an alpine garden is great, so I don't want to criticise it, but it still seems to be based on the sense of garden transformation and 'massive design dreams'. Surely that is the antithesis of gardening for many of us - we make gardens steadily and based on a growing knowledge about the world of plants. A more adventurous programme that looked at natural plant communities (which after all are often much more beautiful than any gardener can make), and then using this background to look in more detail at established plantsman's gardens - those who have had a long passion for plants and a great deal of knowledge about them - and the successes and failures that we have had, would be more illuminating. That is also the basis of how we might go about making a garden, and the idea of showing this too is a good one. What about Peter Korn's extraordinary endeavours in Sweden, or gardens like Tromso Botanical Garden in Norway? They are gardens which are always pushing boundaries and discovering new ways to succeed with plants - and using the natural climate and situation to best advantage. Whenever we discuss this, the conclusion is that it will never happen because there is simply not enough interest to get viewers to watch it on TV. Is this true? This is not to reflect on many of the garden programmes which lots of gardeners must enjoy, but to ask for something different. Does TV have to cater to all, or can it sometimes take a more specialised approach? I would have thought there is easily room for both and immense scope to look at plants more imaginitively. The Czech rock gardens, for example, were a revelation to me and I have been growing alpines since I was in my teens. Some of the gardens in the States, shown on this Forum, look equally exciting. There might even be a few alpine gardens in the UK that have that same wonder (he says tongue in cheek! - because I have certainly seen some). Could there be a new fashion for alpine gardening coming along? Who knows?

[Tim Ingram]

Following up from this thread Helen, on the AGS Discussion, has highlighted a  programme on Rock Gardening as part of the 'Great British Gardening Revival' on TV tonight. A few members may feel they are part of this revival! Look forward to it.

[Maggi Young]

A handy reminder to consult the Radio Times in advance rather than in arrears, which tends to be my default action!

 BBC 2  7 pm  Great British Garden Revival  -
 from the programme website :
Rock Gardens (Carol Klein) and Herb Gardens (Toby Buckland)

ROCK GARDENS – CAROL KLEIN

Carol Klein shares her infectious passion for a style of gardening that is in much need of a revival. Rock gardens were at the pinnacle of Victorian garden fashion. Carol opens up the horticultural display cabinet to the finest remaining examples across the country. She visits a community in Bolton who have pulled back their local rockery from neglect and also drops in on an old friend in the Midlands, whose rock garden is gold-medal-winning. At Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, Carol demonstrates tried and tested techniques for growing success. She shows how to plant up a trough with some of her treasured rock garden favourites and also gives advice on the best alpine bulbs for containers.

HERB GARDENS – TOBY BUCKLAND

Toby Buckland loves plants that you can grow and actually use. Throughout history, herbs have been used in medicine, to stimulate the senses and, of course, as a flavouring in food - but he thinks there’s a danger that our knowledge and understanding of these plants is being lost. Tucked away on the banks of the Thames, The Chelsea Physic Garden is the base for Toby’s Herb Garden Revival. He shows us how to get the very best from fresh herbs: harvesting seeds, how to grow and look after them whether you have a garden or not, and how to make the most of herbs by storing them in clever and unusual ways. On his campaign, he discovers that there was no such thing as a weed in Tudor times; he meets a woman whose garden is overflowing with herbs we’ve forgotten about, and a botanist who grows plants to capitalise on their unique fragrances and essential oils.

[Tim Ingram]

Well, what did viewers make of this programme on rock gardening? Carol Klein is best when she is speaking about the practice of gardening, rather than trying to evangelise about a 'Great British Revival'. So quite a bit of the programme was instructive and informative. There were comments that would tally with many alpine gardeners experiences - John Massey saying that you get out of gardening what you put into it and that it is very much an ongoing process; the criticism of rock gardening that Reginald Farrer made in the early 20th century, when plants were often subsiduary to extravagent rock work; the comparison right at the end with Japanese style gardens and the way that children can be drawn in to the garden, and the fact that a rock garden can be made on the smaller scale and incorporated into any garden. Revival though implies a beginning and for many committed alpine gardeners (and certainly plantspeople) this programme is only a start. It would be nice to look at gardens in a more detailed and one could say almost literary way, and to compare gardening with these plants with their natural occurrences around the world. Quieter and more appropriate music and a higher plane of presentation could begin to give alpine gardening a truer and deeper appeal. Literary and artistic criticism is de rigeur in the world of books and art, but is rarely found in the televised world of gardening, even though plants have a beauty and history of equal significance. The programme was good, but still in the 'Gardener's World' style rather than taking on a style closer to Natural History or skilled craftsmanship which gardening, and particularly propagating, lacks no less than many other crafts. The comments right at the beginning about the thanks due to collectors and explorers who have introduced plants is certainly true (and nurserymen and botanists might well be included here as well), but how about 'gardening' programmes that actually tell us about these and some of the drama and sometimes misfortune that accompanied them. Gardening is unusual in being at the one time so down to earth and at another so thoroughly an individual education. It has its Jane Austen, George Eliot and Gerald Durrell as well as Ian Fleming, le Carré and John Wyndham, not to say the wonderful writings of Christopher Lloyd, Vita Sackville-West and E. A. Bowles.

[Maggi Young]

I think if one is talking of a revival then there should not be quite so much time devoted to the past - for a revival new ideas and modern practices are surely more relevant?
And it was deeply irritating and disappointing to see yet more planting demos which will result in a perched water table  in the container - have  none of these people cottoned on the the ridiculous repetition of this ancient canard?

[vivienr]

I am rather confused as I have just watched on I-player and it turned out to be one about herbaceous borders and kitchen gardens, which is not due to be shown until next tuesday. They seem to have got their numbers in a twist.

[Tim Ingram]

At the beginning of the programme it was stated that it was a change to the advertised episode so that must explain the difference on I-player. Carol Klein also talked to a group of older gardeners who were renovating an old overgrown rock garden in a park, and there is an interesting interplay here between the way gardening may often appear to be an activity you devote yourself too later in your life and in a more community sense, compared to the more individual and exploratory way that comes from a more detailed study of plants. The latter is more likely to come if you are attracted to gardening from an early age and have a very great interest in plants, just as you might have in literature or music or art, or indeed science. This is why gardening can hold such a wide and disparate appeal to so many people, and why there is a place for programmes that look to the Natural World of plants as well as plants in our gardens if they are to satisfy our curiousity. In a way gardening programmes try to be too simplistic and as a result satisfy some people but not many others. Personally I would be drawn to programmes looking at plants in Nature, their ecology and the drama of exploring the places they grow, which would inform my gardening - but that is only because I have studied plants all my life and have a different way of viewing a garden, so I am probably in a minority.

[Margaret]

Hi Vivien

I-player has the rock gardening episode on now. Will watch it this evening but it is unfortunate that they have loud music in the background while presenters are speaking.

[ichristie]

Hello all, I watched the programme and enjoyed most of it but as usual did not spend enough time looking at plants and structures it seemed like a bit here a bit there and o/k showed some plants John Massey was his usual best more please, cheers Ian the Christie kind.

[johnralphcarpenter]

It was nice to see bulbs included in the rock garden segment, especially species Tulips, although the one Carol planted is not actually a species but a cultivar of Tulipa humilis! I do take issue with her planting however - I always incorporate a grit layer immediately under the bulbs, and plant quite deeply.

[Maggi Young]

It was the crocks and grunge in the base of trough and pot that would create a perched water table that bothered me, Ralph. Daft that "experts" will persist with this nonsense.

[Tim Ingram]

Maggi - we had a talk about this from Paul Cumbleton that explained it so well and I agree with you. But Paul is a real expert and most gardeners are not and it would be true to say that alpine gardeners of the past actually got very good results even when they created such a perched water table by putting lots of crocks into the base of troughs and pots. This is always mentioned in articles of the past even from the most accomplished growers. I think what you are really saying is that it would be good to have a real expert presenting a programme on alpine gardening, and I would be with you on that.

[jomowi]

I didn't see the programme as the subject matter was wrongly billed in my TV listings, but from what I can gather from the above comments, it is no different from any other TV programme.  By which I mean that anyone who has an in depth knowledge of the subject finds such programmes superficial. I don't think even a 'real expert' as Tim suggests would be allowed a free hand in what goes into the content.

[fermi de Sousa]

I don't think even a 'real expert' as Tim suggests would be allowed a free hand in what goes into the content.

That's exactly what happened here a few years ago! Stephen Ryan ( who is a personal friend so my account is in no way unbiased!) was the host of our "local" ABC Gardening Australia TV Show. He runs a "Rare Plants" nursery and has a huge expertise in growing difficult plants, especially cool climate ones. He was never allowed to really show his true potential as compere and seemed more like the person for introducing the next article. A couple of years ago he was asked to say that he was quitting to concentrate on his nursery when in fact the management just didn't renew his contract! They put in a "personality" who they felt would attract a younger audience and would concentrate on vegetable gardening and the environment and ecology. They lost a lot of older viewers as a result and the show has wandered from Natural History to Farming to Environmental Issues and has never really been of real interest to me since (but remember that I'm biased); rant over!
TV Management look at overall ratings these days and don't see the point in satisfying the needs of such a select group of gardeners as "alpine or rock gardeners",
cheers
fermi