On 2014-05-15 21:25:41 +0000, David Hill said:
snip

No one seems to have taken into account AT having sold his image to
B&Q, and after having him plastered over everything in their stores I'm
not surprised that "Auntie has dropped him.

But they didn't drop him, David. If they had the B&Q 'excuse' might
have been more understandable. What they asked him to do was play
second fiddle when he had been first fiddle for years! It was a gross
humiliation and a dreadful way to treat a popular and professional
anchor man for a garden programme.

Whilst Chelsea is a feast of flowers it's also the first event in the
London "Season" so is the place to be seen by many who go there. They
are more interested in knowing if the cameras caught them at the show
than in a bunch of plants and a load of "Hicks from the sticks" who are
crowding up the place.
I speak as one who has been to Chelsea over 25 times and who has also
exhibited there in the days when it was a show for nurserymen to
display their skills rather than big business to employ "names" to
design and build them a garden at almost any cost.

I wish it would go back to the days when it was about the plants and
with less emphasis on the designer gardens. The first time I went to
Chelsea was about 40 years ago and it was an absolute revelation to see
all those wonderful plants exhibited in the old marquee. Now, all the
fuss seems to be about gardens with rusting metal pillars, slabs of
concrete and gardens you need a lift to get into. Entertaining,
perhaps but little to do with the gardening most people aspire to. In
that respect, it's a bit like haute couture fashion. Little seen on the
catwalk is ever likely to be seen on the pavement but it shows the
skill and imagination of the designer.

The BBC would show 3 programmes from the show and no one cared who
presented it as long as they got to see the plants.
How about there being a competition each year where say 10 contestants
a week present a 5 minute presentation on a garden of their choice, the
viewers vote and the top 2 from each week go on to a series of semi
finals then to a final where the winner gets to present Chelsea show on
the Beeb.
David@ a very sunny side of Swansea bay for 2 days now.

How about a tv series where a variety of NGS gardens is visited by a
knowledgeable plantsman and horticulturist each week, who talks to the
owners and to some of the visitors to the garden? Hundreds and
hundreds of gardens open every year and yet this is entirely overlooked
as one of the mainstays of interest in gardening at a level anyone can
hope to reach. Huge gardens, middling gardens, tiny gardens all open
for the NGS and it's a sort of distillation of British gardening.
Someone is missing a trick not making an annual series out of that!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk