X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Gardeners' Question Time


Gardeners' Question Time

These editions are recorded in a specially adapted potting shed at Sparsholt College near Sparsholt, Winchester; where the regular panel members also maintain a small demonstration garden, curated by Rosie Yeomans.

Roy Lancaster

He has also regularly appeared on the BBC Radio show Gardeners' Question Time and is also a freelance writer and lecturer.

Will Ingwersen

An occasional broadcaster on shows such as the BBC's Gardeners' Question Time, Will is remembered for his contribution to alpine and rock gardening.


Barnsdale Gardens

Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland, England were made famous by Geoff Hamilton through the BBC television series Gardeners' World which he presented from 1979 until his death in 1996.

Becontree

Privet hedges (referred to as "evers") were planted along the pavements at the end of every front garden and during the spring and summer months a squad of gardeners were employed to keep them in regulation height.

Begonia boliviensis

Begonia boliviensis is of special historical interest to gardeners, being one of the species used by John Seden in the production of the first hybrid tuberous begonia raised in England, B. × sedenii.

Bretton Hall, West Yorkshire

The pleasure grounds and parkland around the hall were the work of landscape gardeners Richard Woods in the 18th century and Robert Marnock, the estate's head gardener, in the 1820s and 1830s.

Château du Rivau

The Rivau fairytale gardens are also a treat for rose lovers and gardeners, as they display a collection of more than 300 roses from famous rose breeders such as André Eve or David Austin.

Chinese Garage

The Chinese Garage was the winner of a Better Petrol Stations competition organised by the Daily Express and the Gardeners' Guild in the 1930s and in 2001 was voted the most unusual garage in England.

City of Hawthorn

The council area covered the suburbs of Hawthorn, Hawthorn East and parts of Glen Iris, and was bounded by the Yarra River to the west, Barkers Road to the north, Gardeners Creek and CityLink (formerly South Eastern Freeway) to the south and Burke Road to the east.

Dierama pulcherrimum

Dierama pulcherrimum, characterized by drooping flowers of silvery-gray pink, was introduced to British gardeners in 1866 by the celebrated Yorkshire botanist James Backhouse; it is today the most commonly-seen dierama in cool-temperate gardens.

Domaine du Rayol

In 1989 the site was acquired by the Conservatoire du Littoral, and landscape gardeners Gilles Clément and Philippe Deliau began a thorough redesign to create today's garden.

Gardeners' World

Natural Elements was the title track of a commercial album released in 1988 on MCA Records under the composers' band name of Acoustic Alchemy.

Gill Pyrah

Pyrah was most recently in the news during the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show after an incident between garden designer and television presenter Diarmuid Gavin and the contestant in the neighbouring garden, Gardeners' Question Time panellist Bunny Guinness.

Grape tomato

The Santa F1 variety is rare in seed form, being offered only by a few seed houses around the world (the United Kingdom's Thompson and Morgan has sporadically featured the variety in its catalog from time to time (see below)); some gardeners report the seed can breed true out to six or more generations, an assertion that has received little notice from most gardening authorities.

Guerrilla Gardeners

Five of the guerrilla gardeners are experienced in landscape and horticulture, while sixth member and host Dave Lawson was hired primarily for his ability to "spin lies to the councils when they turned up".

Ice Saints

To the Poles, the trio are known collectively as zimni ogrodnicy (cold gardeners), and are followed by zimna Zośka (cold Sophias) on the feast day of St. Sophia which falls on May 15.

Jacques Boyceau

It was designed for the patron rather than for the gardener, but it had an influence on the designs of André Le Nôtre, who transformed the manner of Boyceau and of the Mollet dynasty of royal gardeners—Claude Mollet and André Mollet—to create the culminating French Baroque gardens, exemplified at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles.

Joe Swift

Swift is a regular presenter and designer on the BBC's Gardeners' World, co-presenter on the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show, Gardeners' World Live, Hampton Court, RHS Tatton Park Flower Show, BBC's Small Town Gardens, and design judge on BBC's Gardener of the Year.

Lonicera fragrantissima

It was brought to the attention of western gardeners by Scottish plant hunter Robert Fortune, who was plant hunting in China for the Royal Horticultural Society.

Nymans

Magnolia × loebneri 'Leonard Messel', Camellia 'Maud Messel' and Forsythia suspensa 'Nymans', with its bronze young stems, are all familiar shrub to gardeners.

Peter Seabrook

His broadcasting career began in 1965 on radio, with the BBC Home Service; he appeared on In Your Garden and Gardeners' Question Time.

Rockingham County Botanical Garden

The garden began in 1996 as an idea of the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners in Rockingham County.

Sparsholt College

The long-running BBC Radio 4 program Gardeners' Question Time has a base at the college known as the Potting Shed, and a demonstration garden.

Tao Te Ching

Many Chinese artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and even gardeners have used the Daodejing as a source of inspiration.

Thomas Jenkinson Woodward

He also furnished information to Smith for James Sowerby's English Botany, and to William Withering for the second edition of his Systematic Arrangement of British Plants, as well as to Thomas Martyn for his edition of Philip Miller's Gardeners' Dictionary.

Trap crop

Chervil is used by gardeners to protect vegetable plants from slugs.

Vauxhall, Auckland

These in turn were named after the Vauxhall Gardens in London, some of the gardeners of which were brought out to New Zealand.

Warwickshire College

Broadcaster Chris Beardshaw, who has hosted gardening programmes on the BBC and Channel 4, and is famed for his work on Gardeners' World, attended Pershore College.

Wimpole Hall

The parkland as it exists today is an overlay of the work of these landscape designers and gardeners, and was completed under the auspices of Elsie and George Bambridge.

Wing Haven Gardens and Bird Sanctuary

The garden also contains an English sundial from 1705, various terra cotta pieces, a plaque with a poem by Japanese pacifist and reformer Toyohiko Kagawa, and a statue of Saint Fiacre, patron saint of gardeners.


see also