Gardens on TV

[mark smyth]

BBC4, channel 116, Saturday 10.25pm
repeated Tuesday at 9pm
1/3 A confusion of names - The work of Carl Linnaeus
2/3 Photosynthesis - how scientists made the connection between plants nd the sun

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BBC4 Sunday 7pm
Hidcote - A garden for all seaons
The story of Hidcote

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BBC4 9pm Wednesday 9pm
Apples British to the core
Chris Beardshaw looks at how Britain shaped the history of the apple
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[ranunculus]

BBC4, channel 116, Saturday 10.25pm
repeated Tuesday at 9pm
1/3 A confusion of names - The work of Carl Linnaeus

A super programme presented by the very personable Timothy Walker ... not to be missed!

[daveyp1970]

BBC4, channel 116, Saturday 10.25pm
repeated Tuesday at 9pm
1/3 A confusion of names - The work of Carl Linnaeus

A super programme presented by the very personable Timothy Walker ... not to be missed!

Cliff i agree,i was glued to the tv watching this program.I wish all tv was as good as this.

[ichristie]

Hi all, I thought the part about Darwin and John Ray was brillient also Hidcote saw a glimps of John Mitchell at RBGE,cheers Ian the Christie kind

[mark smyth]

A confusion of names - The work of Carl Linnaeus

A fantastic programme. I hope everyone, who could, watched it.

[Maggi Young]

Yes, a super programme, we are looking forward to the next two.
I would hope this was the sort of series that would be bought up to show around the world- the audience for it would be pretty good, I'm sure.

[daveyp1970]

The first program was one of the most informative bits of telly i have watched,I just wish there was a show that deals with plants in there natural habitats,maybe following an expedition with Chris Chadwell,or the like.It would be good to see,they do it with animal programs.

[Maggi Young]

That would be ideal for us, Davey. Not sure that CC is the one for the job, though 

[Pascal B]

Triggered by this thread I watched the program about Linnaeus and Ray too yesterday evening, great program!. The early history of botany well explained. I do however think it is a pitty the program skipped about 150 years of scientific history, DNA fingerprinting only really came into focus in the past decade and Linnaeus and Ray were only the start. Progress made by botany giants like Engler I think would make nice television too so they could have stretched the subject a bit more. Maybe even a second episode of it with the current status of botany because there is a lot more to tell and explain about it. But I guess that was not the intention of the program makers and too much in-depth on the subject..... Programs like this seem to fall a bit in between Attenborough programs and the Open University but are still infinitely more enjoyable than 90% of what is on telly now.

To give an example, they talk about how the early definition of a species came about but that was still ill-defined and since then there have been about 12 different concepts developed of what a "species" constitutes...., which directly affects names and name changes. Talk about "confusion of names"....

[Pascal B]

That would be ideal for us, Davey. Not sure that CC is the one for the job, though 

I second that, a considerable part of the CC collections are made by locals for him... Would be quite embarassing for him, I would rather see the Wynn-Jones couple for such a program.

[daveyp1970]

Maggie and Pascal i just couldn't think of somebody off the top of my head,The great Jim Archibald would have been my first choice but never mind.As long as its not Titmarsh(nice chap but he's on everything).

[Tim Ingram]

Timothy Walker was a superb presenter for 'A Confusion of Names'. I particularly liked the references to Philip Miller and the Chelsea Physic Garden which has always been a favourite place to visit and is small enough to take in compared to much bigger gardens. Anna Pavord has written an amazing book, 'The Naming of Names', which takes you up to the point of Linnaeus, and shows what intense rivalry there has always been in what might seem the sedate world of plants!

I would love to see programmes on plants in the wild, and in particular combining the undoubted excitement of exploration in the mountains, as much for the landscape as anything else, with the magic of discovering plants. A favourite would be something like the retelling of Frank Kingdom-Ward's 'Riddle of the Tsangpo Gorges' By Kenneth Cox and his co-travellers. It would be pretty easy (!?) to do this this with lightweight hand held cameras, and could have appeal well beyond gardeners.

Interesting to see the lack of chemistry between Forrest and Johnston on the Hidcote programme; I should think the traveller and explorer really prefers his own company and that of the people he meets along the way.

[mark smyth]

Did you all watch Heligan on TV this evening? "Heligan - Secrets of the Lost Garden". Fabulous programme looking at the gardens and the wildlife.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013nhmg

[mark smyth]

What are the poppies abround 40 minutes?

[Paul T]

Mark,

I watched it here a few months ago when it was shown.  Great programme.  Sorry, I don't remember the poppies at 40 minutes.