I'm beginning to get worried that my news provider is losing stuff as,
apart from one more or less casual mention within a post about
something else, I haven't seen any real talk about the new Gardeners'
World series and we're now just past episode 2.

So (assuming I haven't missed anything and apologies if I have), my
thoughts to, maybe, start a discussion:

I didn't like Monty the first time he presented but I'm enjoying his
style this time round. I didn't realise just how many different topics
he'd covered until I watched a second time. I think that presenting
from his own garden makes a real difference. The single presenter for
the bulk of the programme works for me, particularly as the topics are
what he'd be doing in his garden now anyway. The balance between veg
and non-veg is about right (I was worried about a bombardment of
organic veg growing!).

I'm a Carol Klein fan and the "interlude" of her visiting a garden
purely for the purpose of visiting it works well and the occasional
tip thrown into the segment is good.

The Joe/Rachel segment in episode 1 and the Rachel segment in episode
2 left me totally cold. I admit to some bias as when I heard that they
were going to be two of the presenters this series I was wishing that
the Beeb had kept Alys and lost Joe and wondering whether Rachel was
there because cookery had Nigella! The idea of a visit to undertake
some clearup job is contrived and I didn't actually see much in the
way of advice on how to clear up. Visiting a garden because it used to
belong to Enid Blyton is fine; we all like (I hope) to visit others'
gardens to get ideas or simply to see them. But leave it at that; if
they want a segment about cleanups then reduce the walkaround and
concentrate on the cleanups. As it stands, if they want this second
non-Monty segment then I think they could do better by getting someone
like Roy Lancaster in to talk "in depth" about a particular plant. Or,
dare I say, Toby Buckland doing the same thing?

FWIW, I think that there does need to be a double "interruption" -
three segments of Monty with two interludes in between - ten minutes
of one person is enough for one go and there are only so many jumps
from topic to topic that can be made without the main thrust of the
programme seeming disjointed.

Thinking about the wider audience, I've been getting deliveries of
bare root plants and some plug plants for a couple of weeks. The
latter have always been straightforward for me but it took me some
years to successfully learn how to deal with bare roots. I know of
people who struggle with the titchy little plugs. So for some it must
be a topical subject. And advice for those without a greenhouse would
be useful (remembering that there are downsides to the windowsill
approach). So some of the stuff for "learners" (of which I was one
once) wouldn't go amiss I think.

But overall, I think the two episodes so far look very promising.

So that's my half-penny's worth. What do others think?

Jake