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Monty Don misting a tree fern, Dicksonia Antarctica

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  • karen paulkaren paul Posts: 230
    With regards to editing- those that remember the programme 'the Krypton factor' and the puzzle that the contestants used to have to complete that was like a 3d jigsaw in a perspex box; my sister went to watch that as part of the live audience and said it actually took the winner at least an hour to complete it, and the slowest about 3 rotting, boring hours! Lol. A comedian filled in some of the time but I imagine it still wasn't a great trip. Of course when it was televised it was edited into only a few minutes.
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I know Monty makes some mistakes, sometimes I cringe at what he says and hope people don’t follow that, but I must say, he’s brilliant at planting out Clematis, you can’t go far wrong following his instructions, and he is a very good writer, his books are wonderful. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    I think what the OP has forgotten or doesn’t appreciate is that Gardener’s World is a programme designed to inspire and entertain, it is not a scientific, step-by-step manual - those are readily available elsewhere. Monty shares his experiences of gardening on a particular site, where he has rich loamy clay, lots of rainfall, shady woodland areas and a boggy part of his plot. He probably doesn’t need to water the roots. He does explain the conditions at Longmeadow from time-to-time but it would be incredibly boring to repeat this info every single programme. Things grow differently and have different requirements depending on your particular conditions so there is no ‘right’ amount of water for any given plant, so if he said ‘mist for x minutes’ it would be wrong unless you happened to have an identical plot, conditions etc to him.

    Tree ferns are very expensive plants and I would hope anyone buying one would research their requirements and take into consideration their own particular conditions. If they don’t, more fool them. 

    Yes, occasionally M is ‘scientifically inaccurate’ e.g. referring to plants having lovely flowers, when in fact, they are bracts, but this is how normal folks speak. I have never heard anyone saying ‘ooh the bracts on your Bougainvillaea are lovely this year’!
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    He doesn't have rich, loamy clay.  He has made it that way after years of mulching and, given that people of all levels of inexperience and knowledge watch the programme to gain info about how, what and when to be doing stuff in the garden he and the entire production team need to make the effort to be accurate.  Can't be that hard.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    edited July 2018
    @karsten.gardenwise - if you read Pat E's tree fern page more carefully, you'll find it does also say, in addition to "ample moisture is essential", "...regular overhead water applied to the trunk".  It's in the top paragraph on the page.  Admittedly, that's in connection with establishing a new plant, but any Dicksonia you buy in UK is unlikely to have much in the way of an extensive root system for some time.

    I watch Gardener's World for entertainment and inspiration.  If I want exact information on the cultivation of a particular plant, I'll look it up on line.
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    You know to do that Liri, as do I and many others here but, as we see regularly on this forum, people buy and plant or inherit things about whose care they haven't a clue.   If I were watching a cookery programme I'd expect it to be accurate about the ingredients in a recipe and how long and at what heat to cook them so they're not under or over done and even with steaks, where people have different needs, the chefs tell you how long for rare, medium and leather.  It takes seconds so why can't Monty do it?
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • Oh boy, what controversy!

    Thank you for your responses. I've enjoyed many of them. And others not so much. There's been, to my eye, quite a bit of assumption, TLDNR, and a bit of disappointing bickering. I was looking and there doesn't seem to be a moderator for this forum, I think it needs one. On the whole I'm pretty disappointed.

    Thanks to you all who are coming across, at least to me, as reasonable and paying attention and managing to throw in a bit of heart and humour.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    There is a team of moderators  ... headed up by @NoraGW and of course @Daniel Haynes the Editor of GardenersWorld.com. 

    They seem not to miss much 
    but have a light touch ... seems to work  :D

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    As @Dovefromabove says, the site is moderated.
    To be honest, maybe you are the one whose posts might have required some attention, as you have not factually represented what the GW. programme said.
    Sorry you are disappointed with the site, many of us love it, experts / amateurs alike, and we rarely have these types of arguments. Maybe food for thought.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • LG_LG_ Posts: 4,360
    Nollie said:
    I have never heard anyone saying ‘ooh the bracts on your Bougainvillaea are lovely this year’!
    I couldn't help thinking of this and chuckling when I watched one of the Tatton programmes and Carol said almost exactly this!
    'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
    - Cicero
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