Behind the Scenes Expose - Gardener of the Year 2005

As promised here are some more detailed pictures of the 'show' garden. According to my camera's highly accurate built in clock the six pictures below were all taken between 11:57 and 12:01 on the last day. So how come they showed Elaine hurriedly filling pots to the soundtrack of 'look for the hero inside' after Monty announced that everyone could have an extra hour? Well mainly because they edited in film from 10:00 that morning. The truth was that our garden was completed at 11:30 and they had to ask us to go back in and look busy for the extra hour announcement. But the camera never lies so I must be mistaken. There is also a closeup of our water feature below that I was dissapointed they never really gave more than a passing glance on camera.



This next batch were taken after the judging, about 4:30pm.
The first picture shows Jeannette who I personally felt was treated unfairly by the finished program.
The second picture is Geoff's garden and although I thought Geoff was never going to win his presence added imensely to the whole experience and we probably spent more of our free time with him and his helper Ben than any of the other contestants.
Picture 3 is of Dean and Mandy our 'clients' who seemed to be quite geniunely pleased with their finished garden. When we returned to the site about 9:00pm to pick up our van for the drive home they were still sat outside enjoying the garden with friends.
Pictures 4 and 5, I have included, at Elaines request, to try and dispell the myth that our garden was mostly gravel!
Picture 6 is of Shirley's garden. I think she was lucky in that the householders taste was closer to her own than any of the other contestants. Shirley distingished herself by persuading the BBC driver to find an off-licence on the journey between the set and the hotel, thereby saving me a great deal of money.

Nearly Famous

Well we finally got to see the show tonight (actually we watched at 2:30pm on BBC2 Northern Ireland to check just HOW embrassing it was before sitting down with all the family). The children were naturally enough very embarrassed, the second eldest had to suffer the indignity of all her freinds ringing to see if it was really her mum. She started off by trying to convince them it was her aunt but later resorted to just screaming "turn it off NOW".

We both felt that the editing was very confusing, we had been there in person and still didn't feel as though we got a clear picture of each garden. Judging by the comments on the BBC Gardening discussion group other people felt this way too.

We will try and get as many photos of the garden as we can up on the site tomorrow, and now the result has been announced we will post our detailed diary of the event.

Thanks for all the positive comments and we are not too modest to say that we should have won.

Elaine & Dave

At last The Gardener of the Year show - well almost.

You may have noticed that we were not on the telly tonight as advertised in the January issue of Gardeners World, the show has in fact been rescheduled to appear on Thursday December the 29th at 8:00pm on BBC2 analogue (thats plain old BBC2 as far as most of you are concerned). Once we have dealt with the embarrasment of everyone watching us I will post a more detailed behind the scenes expose of our time with Monty.

Visit to Picton Garden

School Garden

Since we have been back from the bbc we have both had trouble adjusting to normal life. For my part I have put many hours hard work into conditioning myself to once again accept a life consisting mostly of eating, drinking and sleeping and so far I am very pleased with what I have managed to achieve. Elaine, however, has kept herself busy by volunteering to redesign the school garden. The children will be lending a hand and I suspect I might be doing a bit of the hard landscaping.

End of the 3rd summer here.

Growth in the garden has been exceptional this year, I think we had quite a lot of rain here compared to the last 2 years, the only really hot month was July where in previous years most of the summer has been unbearable. The first April we moved in the temp was in the 70's and we had dinner outside nearly every day. Hopefully I will be able to devote as much time as I have this year to keeping the garden looking good, having the open day and the judges visiting several times has certainly kept me busy and on top of the weeding. Best open a lot next year and enter plenty of competitions - its the only way to make me work.

Daily Mail Competition - Final Judging

The judges arrived today for the final judging as promised. I suspect that their decision had already been made before they arrived as they left us with a finalist (runner up) plaque although they didn't say one way or the other, most confusing. Anyway the plaque looks great in the garden and I think Elaine is hoping it will be the first of many.

BBC Gardener of the Year

Elaine got a call today from the producer of Gardeners World to let her know that she is in the final twenty for Gardener of the Year!!
She had to answer 20 question which I think she found a bit stressful, and two people from the BBC are coming to take some video to allow the next stage of judging to take place.

Garden open day

NGS Open Day

Today was the NGS open day and definitely the hottest day so far this year. We had almost 100 people pay to get in the garden, and as we were open in conjunction with another garden the total number of visitors was around 300. People seemed to stay a long time and we were surprised by the number of places they found to sit. It was very strange to look across the gravel area and see so many tables full of people eating tea and cake. Unfortunately we were far too busy answering questions and selling cans and ice cream to take any photos so if anyone who was there has any pictures we could put up on the site please let me know.

Someone else's views

I'm not sure who took these photo's but as they were nice ones I've decided to include them. Its nice seeing pictures that somebody else takes, I seem to take mine from the same places, so its like seeing the garden through somebody elses eyes.

A lovely June day

The Alliums have been growning really well, the hosta's don't seem to have had too much damage from slugs, although I must admit to putting a small amount of slug pellets down when they were just starting to come up (I do try and hide them from the birds etc).

The sunken bed gets rather overwhelmed at this time of year, the growth is so lush. The orange rose is recommended "Warm Welcome", it seems to flower for most of the season as long as you continue to deadhead.

Again the bog area seems to be in a world of its own, its beginning to look like something from the lost prehistoric world. The pond area hasn't been too wet this year so we have run a small trickle of water through a pump from the river, it seems to continue working even when we switch it off, so its been quite interesting to see water all summer..

At last the new bed by the gate, this area has been a compost heap, then a weed experimentation area and now finally a flower bed. Its quite shaded here so I've put in some Rhododendrons and ferns, hostas, hemoracallis. Also tulips and alliums and lilies.

Photos for the Paper

Charles Hawes a nationally known photographer who happens to live relatively near arrived today and took this flattering picture of herself, along with several others to appear in the Saturday Magazine. Suffice to say that her normal garden attire was not nearly smart enough for the occasion. Charles has an excellent garden of his own that is well worth a visit.

Through to the Last Six

We received a letter from the Daily Mail today confirming that we are through to the final six and promising tickets for Hampton Court. Also a photographer will be contacting us to arrange a visit - all very exciting

A summerhouse at last !

The primulas are getting more spectacular each year, the judges for the Daily Mail were amazed by them, these were the ones I grew from seed, some are from RHS Harlow Carr which is quite famous for theirs.

The bogpond area is very lush already this year, the blue siberican irises are stunning against the greens. The whole area here seems very calming and relaxing. I have placed some chairs on the patio area, but haven't had time to sit on them yet.

The summerhouse has risen!. For the last year I have just had a space marked out for it. It only took a couple of days to put up in the end, but because of Davids limited movement in his shoulders, it was quite difficult for him to reach the higher parts of the roof. The dome on the top is infact a urn lid that we got at the local scrap merchant, we might go back for the other to put on top of the avairy.