"Stan The Man" wrote in message
...
In article , tuin man
wrote:

"Stan The Man" wrote in message
...

Of course everyone has a story to tell and of course there will be
exceptions but in general I don't think that I can be swayed from my
view that those who communicate about gardening to millions of
viewers/readers should be a) as well qualified horticulturally as
possible; b) as experienced as possible; and c) as coherent as
possible.

There is another point here of course. For the first time it seems the BBC
gardening presenters are precisely that -"presenters".

AT, Geoff Hamilton ...... and all the way back to Percy Thrower were
gardeners first and presenters second.
They also used their own gardens. We the viewers were privileged to enter
their garden and get advice from them , see what they were doing and
possibly try the same. Its always nice to nose around in someone else's
garden . A village near me does a garden crawl and allows everyone to come
and snoop round neighbours gardens every couple of years or so.

Now the beeb use a TV garden ( well one leased by the TV for the purpose) -
and I think in doing that they have lost some of the personal quality in GW.
I used to like the fact that I was allowed into someone else's garden. Now
we have a show garden, a place the BBC can experiment. In a sense its not a
real place anymore - and its lost that personal contact. Its a show garden
( just like Chelsea)

I can understand why they have done this. Back in the old days of one
presenter in their own garden there was probably a limit to what the BBC
could do. Now they have a free hand to do BBC lovie type things!
I always felt sorry for AT because his garden somehow stopped being his own
( more than any of the other previous presenters) when they introduced the
"team" idea. I sometimes wonder if thats not why AT left his house and moved
to another one. He said he had "one more garden" in him - in other words he
didnt feel his garden was his anymore and had been changed into something he
didnt want?

Whilst this "team" can now have a free hand to be lovvie and try out
cutting edge design and show type things, its lost that personal touch.

We dont realise because its in the small print that actually Monty, RdeT
Chris Beardshaw et al are not the gardeners at Berryfields. The gardener at
Berryfields is someone else , and to all accounts highly qualified and
experienced proper professional gardener
Maybe he should be presenting the show?

Just a thought
( or two or three - sorry about the ramble)