Me too. So pleased to see the back of the endless box hedging. It was boring and monotone and monoform and it will all look so much better opened up and with less of the control freakery that the hedges implied. I didn't see the point of all those box balls in that courtyard either. More monotony.
Have to agree about Joe Swift but for a slot on design I'd rather have JAS than Alys.
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)."
It's a TV programme set in someone's garden and he isn't following a script. Presumably each week there is a discussion between hima nd the prodcution team as to which topics will be covered from his garden and then they slot in the visits such as sweet pea man, cyclamen men and the Cornish garden but those visits will be planned and often filmed months in advance to have as stock.
Monty is paid to present it all in his own eloquent words. Whether or not we agree with those words is another matter entirely.
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)."
Mike, I thought exactly the same, cutting every plant with a saw, then having to go back and dig up the roots???? Why not just dig the whole thing up in one go??
Maybe he did it that way because he wanted to burn the top growth - presumably the roots, having been in very soggy soil all winter wouldn't burn readily?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I enjoy GW. But joe swift annoys the hell out of me. All the gardens they visit always are in England'. How about visit some of Scotland's amazing gardens !
I doubt if he chooses which gardens he goes to John!
I'm not commenting on the box blight issue other than to say - any gardener who can honestly say they've never made mistakes, no matter how much experience they have, is probably telling porkies. I think it's refreshing when people hold their hand up and say - well I tried this and look what happened. As gardeners we often wing it - sow things a bit late, prune things too early, plant things in the wrong soil and the wrong location, don't get our bulbs in at the right time - the list goes on and on. It's how we learn.
No one gets it right day in day out, year after year.
And I think we expect a bit too much from a half hour of telly once a week. You can please some of the people, some of the time.....
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I just dropped by for my tea break. I usually avoid the recurrent I love/I hate MD, JS, etc, etc threads. He/she can nothing wrong, He/she can do nothing right. The put down or praise at every possible (barely possible) opportunity.............etc
It all gets a bit tedious after a couple of years. As we're all different and presenters are all different it's not surprising we see it differently
Well to answer the original question, Kevin, I felt sorry for Monty. Plants are like friends and relatives, we lose them unexpectedly, when we had great plans of things we were going to do with them, or tell them, and they may go before their time. We nurture them like children, and plan and build things around them, and it can be a shock when they go. In the Siberian winter of 2011, we lost the only shade we had in our garden - the waving shimmering shade provided by a eucalyptus. We now have a rather lovely gazebo built from reclaimed brick, oak posts and cedar shingles. Gardens, like life, move on, and I felt that Monty made this point bravely and convincingly. But when he talked about his children having grown up, there was that melancholy sense of times which have passed, and which cannot be reclaimed, and that was what made it so bittersweet. What I really like about Monty is the way that he effortlessly connects the spirit of gardening with the human condition.
Hi I felt very sad for Monty, It always upsets me when something I have tended and nurtured dies. Especially something that has been around for so long, 14years is a long time to look after a plant then loose it. I really wanted to use box in my garden, but as i discovered it's all built on concrete, it would have been too big a job to dig it all out.
having said that, I did think there was an awful lot of it, and always wondered about how much shade it created in the beds.
Posts
Me too. So pleased to see the back of the endless box hedging. It was boring and monotone and monoform and it will all look so much better opened up and with less of the control freakery that the hedges implied. I didn't see the point of all those box balls in that courtyard either. More monotony.
Have to agree about Joe Swift but for a slot on design I'd rather have JAS than Alys.
It's a TV programme set in someone's garden and he isn't following a script. Presumably each week there is a discussion between hima nd the prodcution team as to which topics will be covered from his garden and then they slot in the visits such as sweet pea man, cyclamen men and the Cornish garden but those visits will be planned and often filmed months in advance to have as stock.
Monty is paid to present it all in his own eloquent words. Whether or not we agree with those words is another matter entirely.
Mike, I thought exactly the same, cutting every plant with a saw, then having to go back and dig up the roots???? Why not just dig the whole thing up in one go??
Maybe he did it that way because he wanted to burn the top growth - presumably the roots, having been in very soggy soil all winter wouldn't burn readily?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
That's true. This way he can burn the blight and dig up the roots and leave them somewhere to dry enough to burn.
I doubt if he chooses which gardens he goes to John!
I'm not commenting on the box blight issue other than to say - any gardener who can honestly say they've never made mistakes, no matter how much experience they have, is probably telling porkies. I think it's refreshing when people hold their hand up and say - well I tried this and look what happened. As gardeners we often wing it - sow things a bit late, prune things too early, plant things in the wrong soil and the wrong location, don't get our bulbs in at the right time - the list goes on and on. It's how we learn.
No one gets it right day in day out, year after year.
And I think we expect a bit too much from a half hour of telly once a week. You can please some of the people, some of the time.....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
All true Fairy.
I just dropped by for my tea break. I usually avoid the recurrent I love/I hate MD, JS, etc, etc threads. He/she can nothing wrong, He/she can do nothing right. The put down or praise at every possible (barely possible) opportunity.............etc
It all gets a bit tedious after a couple of years. As we're all different and presenters are all different it's not surprising we see it differently
In the sticks near Peterborough
Well to answer the original question, Kevin, I felt sorry for Monty. Plants are like friends and relatives, we lose them unexpectedly, when we had great plans of things we were going to do with them, or tell them, and they may go before their time. We nurture them like children, and plan and build things around them, and it can be a shock when they go. In the Siberian winter of 2011, we lost the only shade we had in our garden - the waving shimmering shade provided by a eucalyptus. We now have a rather lovely gazebo built from reclaimed brick, oak posts and cedar shingles. Gardens, like life, move on, and I felt that Monty made this point bravely and convincingly. But when he talked about his children having grown up, there was that melancholy sense of times which have passed, and which cannot be reclaimed, and that was what made it so bittersweet. What I really like about Monty is the way that he effortlessly connects the spirit of gardening with the human condition.
Hi I felt very sad for Monty, It always upsets me when something I have tended and nurtured dies. Especially something that has been around for so long, 14years is a long time to look after a plant then loose it. I really wanted to use box in my garden, but as i discovered it's all built on concrete, it would have been too big a job to dig it all out.
having said that, I did think there was an awful lot of it, and always wondered about how much shade it created in the beds.