The Old Man and the Garden
When I was young, gardeners were old... now I'm in my 70s, am I over the hill?
When I was young, gardeners were old... now I'm in my 70s, am I over the hill?
What makes the difference between a good garden, and a great one? More importantly, who decides? It is a divisive topic, and Mary Keen has views, and some of them would shock an estate agent.
What begins as hosepipe-ban despair turns into one of the richest conversations they've had: a proper masterclass in secondary and tertiary colour, a working formula for building texture into a border, and a hard look at who you're actually gardening for. Spoiler: it isn't the neighbours.
With our soil under threat from drought and erosion, keeping it covered is more important now than ever. Annie Guilfoyle turns her attention to finding the right ground cover plants for your garden.
Alan names and shames his personal gardening nemesis: the water feature. Dodging any responsibility for its rise to popularity through Ground Force, Alan tries to find the ones whose beauty justifies the bother of maintenance.