I have watched it again (with a fair bit of fast forwarding), and the minute Monty said he was going to plant another hedge, well . You could probably have heard my cry of "Noooooo" over there @Obelixx .
It is @Chris-P-Bacon but you'd think he'd embrace the improvement of not having all those hedges.
I recall an episode a couple of years ago when he was visited by an Irish gardener who said, very tactfully, maybe he had enough hedges and "closure".
As for the rest, the older couple were lovely but why concentrate on veg man at teh expense of flower lady?
One can have too many houseplants. Orchid man was great at communication but one can definitely have too many orchids, begonias, impatiens and all the other plasticky looking plants. That garden with the back door and the colander was just scruffy. recycling can be attractive if done well but not there.
Wildlife gardening does not have to include buttercups or "native" trees and shrubs. How far back to "native"? Insects need pollen and nectar and don't care if it's native unless they are suicidally specific and narrow in plant range. Attractive plants work too.
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)."
But insects don’t just need pollen and nectar ... they also need food plants for the larvae .., and very often they are quite specific native plants ...without them no caterpillars so no moths and butterflies ... that was the point.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I have yet to find caterpillars or other larvae on either creeping buttercup or ox-eye daisies and we have loads of those, and nettles, in the bits I do leave wild.
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)."
I was crying "Noooooo" about the hedges too! His garden looks so much better without them. I'm afraid I thought the wildlife lady's and the wild flower shed roof man's gardens looked a mess. I like to keep a patch for wildlife but not in a prominent part of my garden, there I prefer to grow prettier plants that also attract wildlife, such as lavender and salvias. The nettles are behind the shed.
I often wonder if all the vegetables ever get eaten, Monty grows so many and the sweet old man's were so big.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
<snip> I don't get the obsession with grasses either.
I don't get the whole Paradise Garden thing. Personally I think it's awful. And I'm sorry for the negativity but the synic in me says it's now served it's purpose having promoted the Paradise Garden TV show & book.
A Paradise Garden ought to be a lush respite from surrounding wilderness/desert so I agree the use of grasses is incongruous. I do like grasses though but he has gone from one untidy grass, Stipa tenuissima, which flops, to another one, Stipa arundinacea.
S. arundinacea is a useful 'background planting' grass but it is big, short lived, and flowers messily. Also self seeds like crazy. He needs something a bit neater and shorter IMO. Maybe one of the smaller Pennisetums. But he had the S. arundinacea seedlings to hand, so...
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
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Having finally grubbed out all the dying box and gained light, space and air and lost the claustrophobia he's planning more hedges???
I recall an episode a couple of years ago when he was visited by an Irish gardener who said, very tactfully, maybe he had enough hedges and "closure".
As for the rest, the older couple were lovely but why concentrate on veg man at teh expense of flower lady?
One can have too many houseplants. Orchid man was great at communication but one can definitely have too many orchids, begonias, impatiens and all the other plasticky looking plants. That garden with the back door and the colander was just scruffy. recycling can be attractive if done well but not there.
Wildlife gardening does not have to include buttercups or "native" trees and shrubs. How far back to "native"? Insects need pollen and nectar and don't care if it's native unless they are suicidally specific and narrow in plant range. Attractive plants work too.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm afraid I thought the wildlife lady's and the wild flower shed roof man's gardens looked a mess. I like to keep a patch for wildlife but not in a prominent part of my garden, there I prefer to grow prettier plants that also attract wildlife, such as lavender and salvias. The nettles are behind the shed.
I often wonder if all the vegetables ever get eaten, Monty grows so many and the sweet old man's were so big.
S. arundinacea is a useful 'background planting' grass but it is big, short lived, and flowers messily. Also self seeds like crazy. He needs something a bit neater and shorter IMO. Maybe one of the smaller Pennisetums. But he had the S. arundinacea seedlings to hand, so...