How Britain Got the Gardening Bug

0:00:02 > 0:00:06MUSIC: "In An English Country Garden"

0:00:06 > 0:00:08Britain has gone gardening mad.

0:00:08 > 0:00:13Most of us have got the gardening bug, and we now spend more of

0:00:13 > 0:00:17our hard-earned cash on our gardens than any other nation in Europe.

0:00:17 > 0:00:22- It's a story of how gardening went from this...- Welcome once again to our Gardening Club.

0:00:22 > 0:00:25..and started being like this.

0:00:25 > 0:00:29Almost without knowing it, we've been through a revolution.

0:00:29 > 0:00:32One that tells a story of how our lives as well as our gardens

0:00:32 > 0:00:34have changed beyond recognition.

0:00:34 > 0:00:39So, just how did Britain get the gardening bug?

0:00:51 > 0:00:55The story starts in 1940, and Britain was at war.

0:00:55 > 0:00:59Life as we knew it came to a standstill,

0:00:59 > 0:01:03and while the men were sent to fight, everyone left back at home

0:01:03 > 0:01:05was conscripted into their own war effort.

0:01:05 > 0:01:09The patriotic duty to grow as much veg as we possibly could.

0:01:12 > 0:01:16It was the London Evening Standard - a headline on one of their leaders

0:01:16 > 0:01:19came up with the Dig for Victory phrase.

0:01:21 > 0:01:23The Government then embraced it, of course,

0:01:23 > 0:01:26and what they urged us to do was to turn over every piece

0:01:26 > 0:01:30of available and productive land into vegetable production.

0:01:30 > 0:01:34MUSIC: "The Sun Has Got His Hat On"

0:01:38 > 0:01:40The Government issued information

0:01:40 > 0:01:43to advise and instruct people how to grow vegetables.

0:01:43 > 0:01:45Beautiful posters, which are now very collectible,

0:01:45 > 0:01:49with the Dig for Victory logo emblazoned across it.

0:01:49 > 0:01:54I think it also was a really important part of the war effort,

0:01:54 > 0:01:58socially and culturally, people felt that they were playing a part.

0:01:58 > 0:02:01Across the country, great open public spaces

0:02:01 > 0:02:06were full of vegetable growing. It was a marvellous endeavour.

0:02:06 > 0:02:09'There may be room for vegetables on your Anderson shelter.

0:02:09 > 0:02:14'Or in the backyard. Or even on that flat bit of roof.'

0:02:14 > 0:02:18Dig for Victory was an incredibly important propaganda moment.

0:02:18 > 0:02:20People like Potato Pete,

0:02:20 > 0:02:23this character who was exhorting you to eat him,

0:02:23 > 0:02:25a sort of cannibalistic,

0:02:25 > 0:02:29he was like that Bertie Bassett liquorice man, in a way.

0:02:29 > 0:02:32'Put your garden on war service. If you haven't got a garden,

0:02:32 > 0:02:35'go to your local council office and ask for an allotment.'

0:02:40 > 0:02:42Digging for victory was a serious business,

0:02:42 > 0:02:45and, coupled with our healthy waste not, want not attitude,

0:02:45 > 0:02:48soon led to Britain's first ever potato peeling patrol.

0:02:48 > 0:02:51Dearly beloved brethren, is it not a sin

0:02:51 > 0:02:54when you peel potatoes, to throw away the skin?

0:02:54 > 0:02:57The skin feeds the pigs. The pigs feed us.

0:02:57 > 0:03:00Dearly beloved brethren, is it not thus?

0:03:00 > 0:03:05As well as the vegetables, there were things called pig clubs.

0:03:05 > 0:03:086,900 of them, I think.

0:03:08 > 0:03:11Groups of gardeners got together and they bought a pig,

0:03:11 > 0:03:13and it fed off vegetable and kitchen scraps.

0:03:13 > 0:03:16Finally, at the end of the day, down to the kitchen

0:03:16 > 0:03:20and they shared it amongst the people who had reared it.

0:03:20 > 0:03:23'The black pig is Romeo. The white one, she's Juliet.

0:03:23 > 0:03:26'But so far, there's no balcony scene.

0:03:26 > 0:03:30'When they grow a little bigger, well, that'll be another story.

0:03:30 > 0:03:32'A sad one for Romeo and Juliet.'

0:03:35 > 0:03:37The Dig for Victory campaign grew and grew.

0:03:37 > 0:03:41Everywhere you looked, people were digging up parks, playing fields,

0:03:41 > 0:03:44flower beds and lawns. What the nation needed was a gardening guru.

0:03:44 > 0:03:47And before long, the first gardening celebrity was born.

0:03:47 > 0:03:50Where else but on the wireless?

0:03:50 > 0:03:53- 'Good afternoon... Ahem!' - Well, when we say "celebrity"...

0:03:53 > 0:03:57'I suppose one of the most difficult jobs to explain

0:03:57 > 0:04:00'over the wireless is the pruning of fruit trees.'

0:04:00 > 0:04:03Cecil Middleton was a phenomenon

0:04:03 > 0:04:05before and during the Second World War.

0:04:05 > 0:04:09He started his broadcasting on the wireless in 1931.

0:04:09 > 0:04:13On the Home Service he was getting 3.5 million.

0:04:13 > 0:04:16Eat your heart out, Gardener's World.

0:04:16 > 0:04:18'My general advice to amateurs is,

0:04:18 > 0:04:23'if you don't know why you are making a certain cut, don't make it at all.'

0:04:23 > 0:04:26I remember one of his homespun phrases was,

0:04:26 > 0:04:30"The harder we did for victory, the sooner the roses will be with us."

0:04:32 > 0:04:35For the women left at home, the war effort was seriously hard work.

0:04:35 > 0:04:39The Women's Land Army mobilised 80,000 of us.

0:04:39 > 0:04:42Women were suddenly in charge.

0:04:42 > 0:04:46We may have only been digging up potatoes, but this change

0:04:46 > 0:04:49paved the way for the emancipation of women in years to come.

0:04:49 > 0:04:53I think the Land Army and the work that women did

0:04:53 > 0:04:57through the Second World War almost put women on an equal basis.

0:04:57 > 0:04:59They worked machinery, drove tractors,

0:04:59 > 0:05:03the big heavy work that nobody would have expected of them previously.

0:05:03 > 0:05:07I think actually it liberated a lot of women, it allowed them to do

0:05:07 > 0:05:11men's work. And also played an important role in the war effort.

0:05:11 > 0:05:16They became confident. I'm sure a lot of men had a horrible surprise

0:05:16 > 0:05:19when they came back and found their housewives had turned

0:05:19 > 0:05:22into these very sturdy strong confident women.

0:05:22 > 0:05:25Whilst the war affected everyone's lives,

0:05:25 > 0:05:28it didn't start us gardening as a nation.

0:05:28 > 0:05:31We Brits already had a grand tradition of gardening,

0:05:31 > 0:05:35- as only a nation who ruled the world could.- I think, before the war,

0:05:35 > 0:05:42even the middle classes would have a jobbing gardener, um, and so...

0:05:42 > 0:05:44I think a lot of middle class people

0:05:44 > 0:05:47didn't actually do a lot of gardening themselves.

0:05:47 > 0:05:50Before the Second World War, in the inter war years,

0:05:50 > 0:05:54there were still very large gardens with large forces of gardeners,

0:05:54 > 0:05:57really the Victorian set-up, with the head gardener,

0:05:57 > 0:06:01and a strictly hierarchical order of men working under him.

0:06:01 > 0:06:04The Second World War really caused the end of that system.

0:06:04 > 0:06:07# Keep the home fires burning... #

0:06:07 > 0:06:10Professional gardeners went off to the war to fight,

0:06:10 > 0:06:13didn't always come back to be gardeners.

0:06:13 > 0:06:14Ended up somewhere else.

0:06:14 > 0:06:18And also I think deference had taken a great hit during the war.

0:06:23 > 0:06:27I think Dig for Victory did give people a sense...

0:06:27 > 0:06:31it certainly did teach some people how to start vegetable gardening,

0:06:31 > 0:06:34particularly in the very inner city areas. I think maybe,

0:06:34 > 0:06:36maybe it may have led to an idea

0:06:36 > 0:06:40that your yard could be used for something else.

0:06:42 > 0:06:46# You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain

0:06:46 > 0:06:49# Too much love drives a man insane... #

0:06:49 > 0:06:51The 1950s came along.

0:06:51 > 0:06:55And, in the face of austerity, we got on with life as best we could.

0:06:55 > 0:06:59Being choked to death by air pollution and surviving on rations.

0:06:59 > 0:07:03We realised that gardening might actually cheer us up.

0:07:03 > 0:07:05Especially as, on Sundays in the fifties,

0:07:05 > 0:07:08there wasn't a fat lot else to do.

0:07:08 > 0:07:12In those days, you couldn't go racing, you couldn't go to football.

0:07:12 > 0:07:14You couldn't go shopping.

0:07:15 > 0:07:17And I think, for a lot of people,

0:07:17 > 0:07:20gardening was what you did on a Sunday afternoon.

0:07:20 > 0:07:22The earliest recollection of why people did it

0:07:22 > 0:07:25was because there wasn't a lot of other things to do,

0:07:25 > 0:07:28and there was a real pride in their front patch.

0:07:28 > 0:07:32They didn't want to be shown up by their neighbours or anybody else.

0:07:36 > 0:07:37After the war, you had

0:07:37 > 0:07:40all these little houses with little backyards.

0:07:40 > 0:07:44And it's where you kept the outside loo, where you hung the washing.

0:07:44 > 0:07:47And it was a purely functional area.

0:07:47 > 0:07:52The yard mainly was for storing things like coal and wood.

0:07:52 > 0:07:55There was a shed and often a privy, and people would keep it like that.

0:07:55 > 0:07:57There wasn't a single garden,

0:07:57 > 0:08:01back garden, in our row that I can remember. They were all little yards.

0:08:01 > 0:08:05It is all about plumbing. If you can move the loo inside, then suddenly

0:08:05 > 0:08:10you have got an area that doesn't smell. And you have got a shed.

0:08:10 > 0:08:13And that yard then becomes a garden.

0:08:22 > 0:08:26The Chelsea Flower Show, which had been cancelled during the war,

0:08:26 > 0:08:29made a comeback, bringing a bit of glamour into

0:08:29 > 0:08:32our rather dismal lives and fuelling our imaginations.

0:08:33 > 0:08:37We flocked there in out droves, collecting all sorts of colourful

0:08:37 > 0:08:40pick-me-ups to take home and plonk into our borders.

0:08:42 > 0:08:46I think the people who went to Chelsea at that time -

0:08:46 > 0:08:48really up until recent years -

0:08:48 > 0:08:53um...would have been... It was the start of the season.

0:08:53 > 0:08:55So it was a place to be seen.

0:08:55 > 0:08:58'Ah, here's Harry Wheatcroft, the rose grower.

0:08:58 > 0:09:03- 'No show is complete without him.' - Yes, Harry Wheatcroft.

0:09:03 > 0:09:07I can remember a large man with a moustache,

0:09:07 > 0:09:09and maybe a checked jacket.

0:09:09 > 0:09:12'Then come the thousands of visitors.

0:09:12 > 0:09:16'Garden lovers, all of them, from every walk of life.'

0:09:16 > 0:09:19It was a place to take your gardener, perhaps, and order this or that.

0:09:19 > 0:09:24But really it was just a social event, rather than a flower show

0:09:24 > 0:09:26in the way that we know them now.

0:09:27 > 0:09:30'But on Friday night, the show must come to an end.

0:09:30 > 0:09:33'The gardens are dismantled, and in a few days the huge marquees

0:09:33 > 0:09:37'have disappeared, and nothing left but the scars on the turf.'

0:09:41 > 0:09:45# This old house once knew his children... #

0:09:45 > 0:09:48One of the big post-war priorities was creating

0:09:48 > 0:09:51new housing for returning servicemen and their families.

0:09:51 > 0:09:56Before we knew it, 160,000 prefabs were built,

0:09:56 > 0:10:00each with its little, and we mean little, plot.

0:10:00 > 0:10:04Post war, a lot of prefabs went up, so people just immediately

0:10:04 > 0:10:07had somewhere to live. And I think most people know that

0:10:07 > 0:10:11they ended up staying up much longer than was originally intended.

0:10:11 > 0:10:16Imagine again all those years of the war, not knowing,

0:10:16 > 0:10:20not having any certainty about home life, and, even though it was a box,

0:10:20 > 0:10:25they had something to call home, with a little patch of ground in front.

0:10:25 > 0:10:29Since the war, nobody has tried to invade us -

0:10:29 > 0:10:33always helpful if you are being a gardener. If nobody tries to invade,

0:10:33 > 0:10:36you look at the area around your house and you can make it prettier.

0:10:36 > 0:10:39# As I walked home on a summer night

0:10:39 > 0:10:43# And the stars in the heaven were shining bright

0:10:43 > 0:10:45# Far away from the footlights' glare

0:10:45 > 0:10:50# Into the sweet and scented air of a quaint old Cornish town... #

0:10:50 > 0:10:55The garden was used for sitting out when it was sunny.

0:10:55 > 0:10:58You never thought of going out, I never thought anyhow

0:10:58 > 0:11:02of going out and doing anything constructive in the garden.

0:11:02 > 0:11:04And if it was hot and sunny, you sat out of it.

0:11:04 > 0:11:08It wasn't a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Well, it was,

0:11:08 > 0:11:12but beauty in your eyes then, not, as it is now, an extra room.

0:11:12 > 0:11:15It was a place where you went when it was hot.

0:11:15 > 0:11:17I don't think one had many meals outside either.

0:11:17 > 0:11:20If you wanted a meal outside, you went on a picnic.

0:11:20 > 0:11:23# I thought I could hear the curious tone

0:11:23 > 0:11:25# Of a cornet, clarinet and big trombone

0:11:25 > 0:11:27# Fiddle, cello, big bass drum

0:11:27 > 0:11:29# Bassoon, fleet and euphonium

0:11:29 > 0:11:31# Far away I was in a trance

0:11:31 > 0:11:35# I heard the sound of the floral dance... #

0:11:35 > 0:11:38Well, in gardens in the 1950s, I think there was a division

0:11:38 > 0:11:42between bits of the garden as there were inside the house.

0:11:42 > 0:11:45And in a way, if you can think of the front garden as the front room,

0:11:45 > 0:11:49that was the showpiece, and perhaps nobody really went there very much.

0:11:49 > 0:11:52You'd have a round bed with a big shrub in the middle,

0:11:52 > 0:11:53maybe a fuchsia or something.

0:11:53 > 0:11:57Petunias or something planted out around it in the summertime.

0:11:57 > 0:12:00And in the back, you might have a tiny little square of lawn

0:12:00 > 0:12:02which again was very carefully kept.

0:12:02 > 0:12:05And it would devolve into vegetables very often.

0:12:05 > 0:12:08It wasn't really used for leisure purposes.

0:12:08 > 0:12:11People weren't having barbecues or having Jacuzzis

0:12:11 > 0:12:14with built in stereos. Things people have nowadays.

0:12:19 > 0:12:24Our post war love of colour was essential in the fifties garden.

0:12:24 > 0:12:28Livingstone daisies, dahlias and roses were all the rage.

0:12:28 > 0:12:33What we had in most back gardens in this country was really the style

0:12:33 > 0:12:37in a way which we still have, this basic structure of it.

0:12:37 > 0:12:40It's a sort of miniaturised version of Arts and Crafts style

0:12:40 > 0:12:42of the early part of the 20th century.

0:12:42 > 0:12:46So you have features like, for example, crazy paving,

0:12:46 > 0:12:49which lot of people laugh about today.

0:12:49 > 0:12:54In the 1920s, crazy paving was the height of sophistication.

0:12:54 > 0:12:58Then you have elements, like a sundial for example.

0:12:58 > 0:13:00A quintessential Arts and Crafts feature.

0:13:00 > 0:13:03You might have that in a suburban back garden as well.

0:13:03 > 0:13:05Or you had a wishing well.

0:13:07 > 0:13:10But at the same time, there was this great emphasis, I think,

0:13:10 > 0:13:13particularly in the early fifties, on bright colour. If you look

0:13:13 > 0:13:16at gardening books at this time, it's not helped by the fact

0:13:16 > 0:13:20colour photography reproduction in books is very smudgy,

0:13:20 > 0:13:24and you open them up and you get this kind of smudgy red or purple

0:13:24 > 0:13:28kind of zinging out at you. Of course, it's to do with the fact

0:13:28 > 0:13:31that we'd just been through this terrible war,

0:13:31 > 0:13:34and in austerity, there was still rationing going on.

0:13:34 > 0:13:38# Inch by inch, row by row

0:13:39 > 0:13:42# We'll make this garden grow

0:13:42 > 0:13:45# All it takes is a rake and a hoe

0:13:45 > 0:13:48# And a piece of furrowed ground... #

0:13:48 > 0:13:52We'd perfected our veg growing skills during the war,

0:13:52 > 0:13:55but when it came to planting anything ornamental,

0:13:55 > 0:13:59the truth is, most of us were still just learning the ropes.

0:13:59 > 0:14:02I think, before the war, it was very much a question

0:14:02 > 0:14:04of people passing on plants.

0:14:04 > 0:14:07Not a lot of people would have ordered things,

0:14:07 > 0:14:09not unless they were rather well-to-do.

0:14:13 > 0:14:17After the war, people started to sort of...

0:14:17 > 0:14:21experiment a little bit with seeds, but it was difficult.

0:14:21 > 0:14:24You couldn't walk into a place and see great arrays of seed.

0:14:24 > 0:14:27You had to get a catalogue, you had to try and find out

0:14:27 > 0:14:30what those plants were. How did you find out?

0:14:30 > 0:14:34You had no websites to visit, no internet, nothing.

0:14:34 > 0:14:39I think the catalogues in those days, essentially,

0:14:39 > 0:14:44they were lists of plants with more or less useful descriptions.

0:14:44 > 0:14:49The second thing is, they expected people to be quite knowledgeable.

0:14:50 > 0:14:55If you ordered roses, for instance, you'd just get this bundle of roots.

0:14:55 > 0:14:58You still can, of course. It's one of the most exciting ways to do it.

0:14:58 > 0:15:01But if you were an inexperienced gardener,

0:15:01 > 0:15:04you'd have wondered what the hell this was.

0:15:04 > 0:15:09I can't remember my mother ever going out to buy plants.

0:15:09 > 0:15:11She might have bought some seeds.

0:15:19 > 0:15:23Men and women were back out in the garden together.

0:15:23 > 0:15:25But who exactly was doing what?

0:15:27 > 0:15:30It was still very much a man's prerogative.

0:15:30 > 0:15:33It was still very much a question of, you know,

0:15:33 > 0:15:36a man and his tools, that's how you garden.

0:15:36 > 0:15:39You know, you're in control, that's what you do.

0:15:39 > 0:15:44You can probably generalise that Mum would do the flowers

0:15:44 > 0:15:48and Dad would do the vegetables and Dad would do the lawn as well.

0:15:48 > 0:15:51When I was very young, my grandfather, my darling grandfather,

0:15:51 > 0:15:54I remember his one job was to clip the privet hedge.

0:15:54 > 0:15:58With shears. I can remember that. And my grandmother had to nag him.

0:15:58 > 0:16:00I don't think he enjoyed doing that very much.

0:16:01 > 0:16:061950s Britain had well and truly come down with the gardening bug.

0:16:06 > 0:16:10The dawning of technology was rocketing us towards

0:16:10 > 0:16:14a snazzy new automated era. Everything started to go high-tech.

0:16:14 > 0:16:17There's an idea that gets about

0:16:17 > 0:16:21that the garden can be something which can be tamed.

0:16:21 > 0:16:24It's this sort of ancient battle, if you like,

0:16:24 > 0:16:27between man, and I probably do mean man in this case, and nature.

0:16:27 > 0:16:32Time-saving gadgets were part of the consumer boom.

0:16:32 > 0:16:35And the gardening world was no exception.

0:16:35 > 0:16:39If the day comes when we can press a button, sit back

0:16:39 > 0:16:41and let the machine guide itself around the lawn,

0:16:41 > 0:16:44then cutting the grass will really be a pleasure.

0:16:56 > 0:17:01In Australia, you always had a lemon tree. And you always remember it,

0:17:01 > 0:17:04because we children were sent to pee on it.

0:17:04 > 0:17:06We weren't to go into the house

0:17:06 > 0:17:09if we were outside playing, we had pee on the lemon tree,

0:17:09 > 0:17:13because we believed that the lemon tree somehow appreciated

0:17:13 > 0:17:16this offering of our essential juices.

0:17:16 > 0:17:21In my first garden, um... it was a large suburban garden.

0:17:21 > 0:17:24Very neat, mostly laid to lawn,

0:17:24 > 0:17:27and full of lots of don'ts. You know...

0:17:27 > 0:17:30"Don't go near the pond, you'll drown."

0:17:30 > 0:17:33"Don't walk on the rockery, you'll fall and twist your ankle."

0:17:33 > 0:17:35"Don't kick a ball into the borders."

0:17:35 > 0:17:38I had a wee pond, I remember, which was overgrown,

0:17:38 > 0:17:42but had the occasional frog, and a lovely rose at the end of my garden

0:17:42 > 0:17:45called an albertine, which flowers for about a week,

0:17:45 > 0:17:48drops all its petals and makes a hell of a mess.

0:17:48 > 0:17:52And then doesn't do anything for the rest of the year.

0:18:02 > 0:18:06After all of the years of austerity, we Brits were finally beginning

0:18:06 > 0:18:08to loosen up a little bit.

0:18:08 > 0:18:11Flower power had arrived from America and, suddenly,

0:18:11 > 0:18:14it was becoming cool to be British.

0:18:14 > 0:18:16But gardening wasn't really cool.

0:18:16 > 0:18:19Not yet, anyway.

0:18:19 > 0:18:22I'd love to be able to sit here and say the 1960s saw

0:18:22 > 0:18:25this incredible unbuttoning of the horticultural world,

0:18:25 > 0:18:28and we had psychedelic gardens, and people on acid trips creating

0:18:28 > 0:18:33incredible kind of garden worlds with abstract plant material.

0:18:33 > 0:18:36It wasn't really true. People were still wearing headscarves.

0:18:36 > 0:18:40Lots and lots and lots of bright colours, garish colours,

0:18:40 > 0:18:44mixed colours out there in the borders as well.

0:18:44 > 0:18:48But I don't think it was a particularly young pastime.

0:18:48 > 0:18:53The people who were really exploring the sixties in fashion and music,

0:18:53 > 0:18:57I don't believe for a moment were out gardening.

0:19:00 > 0:19:04I grew up in this suburban, almost rural idyll.

0:19:04 > 0:19:08It was a London suburb and they were much more rural than they are now.

0:19:08 > 0:19:10And it had all of the classic features.

0:19:10 > 0:19:12It had a wonderful lawn,

0:19:12 > 0:19:16it had great flower beds, it had magnificent trees, shrubs.

0:19:16 > 0:19:20And I was encouraged at a very, very early age

0:19:20 > 0:19:24to do a lot of things in the garden. You'd be picking apples,

0:19:24 > 0:19:29you'd be cutting the grass, maybe with shears.

0:19:29 > 0:19:33We had a couple of dogs, we had hamsters that were in the garden.

0:19:33 > 0:19:35We had lots and lots and lots of cats.

0:19:35 > 0:19:39I remember the cats were always buried under the hedge.

0:19:40 > 0:19:44Modern times called for a modern materials in our gardens, and soon,

0:19:44 > 0:19:47people began to offset the floral abundance of it all

0:19:47 > 0:19:51with that essential forward-looking 1960s material.

0:19:51 > 0:19:53Concrete!

0:19:53 > 0:19:57They want something which is cheap and easy and new,

0:19:57 > 0:20:00so concrete is the ideal material. Very malleable,

0:20:00 > 0:20:03very democratic, really.

0:20:03 > 0:20:06They colour it blue, pink, orange, fantastic!

0:20:06 > 0:20:10Mum and Dad decided we should have our own paddling pool in the garden.

0:20:10 > 0:20:14And one week, they just set to with spade and shovel

0:20:14 > 0:20:17with Fiona, my big sister,

0:20:17 > 0:20:22and dug a paddling pond about a quarter the size of a sort of room,

0:20:22 > 0:20:25lined it with concrete, then filled it with a hose,

0:20:25 > 0:20:29and then that was where, for years, we would, I suppose, swim.

0:20:30 > 0:20:33MUSIC: "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys

0:20:37 > 0:20:40Britain didn't just have the gardening bug,

0:20:40 > 0:20:42we now had the travelling bug.

0:20:42 > 0:20:46The new-fangled package holidays made foreign travel possible

0:20:46 > 0:20:49for working people, who's only real previous experience of it

0:20:49 > 0:20:52had been wartime conscription.

0:20:52 > 0:20:54All of a sudden, we were jetting off to sunnier climes,

0:20:54 > 0:20:58like Spain and Portugal.

0:20:58 > 0:21:01The mass movement towards package holidays and foreign travel made

0:21:01 > 0:21:05a difference to how people looked at their gardens when they got home.

0:21:05 > 0:21:07Combined with the nice weather,

0:21:07 > 0:21:11- it should make your holiday a happy one.- 'So you had'

0:21:11 > 0:21:14elements that had never existed in gardens before, like patios.

0:21:14 > 0:21:18# This year, I'm off to sunny Spain

0:21:18 > 0:21:23# Viva Espana! #

0:21:23 > 0:21:25Which is a Spanish word, it's the Spanish context.

0:21:25 > 0:21:31Before that, if you'd any kind of hard standing, you'd probably call it

0:21:31 > 0:21:35a terrace, which was French, or terrazzo, which was Italian.

0:21:35 > 0:21:39But suddenly, because of Spain, there was this inspiration

0:21:39 > 0:21:44about bringing living outside much more.

0:21:44 > 0:21:47In the 1950s, your herb garden consisted

0:21:47 > 0:21:53of a few bits of mint and possibly some parsley.

0:21:53 > 0:21:56But once you'd been to Majorca, you came back and you thought

0:21:56 > 0:21:59there was rosemary and lavender and a lot of things

0:21:59 > 0:22:02that you felt that you wanted to grow in your own garden.

0:22:06 > 0:22:09People realised there was a whole world out there

0:22:09 > 0:22:13that they hadn't come across before. When I was a child,

0:22:13 > 0:22:16olive oil was something you bought in the chemist.

0:22:16 > 0:22:19It was something you put in your ears for ear ache.

0:22:19 > 0:22:21Nobody cooked with olive oil in those days.

0:22:23 > 0:22:25Back at home, new levels of prosperity

0:22:25 > 0:22:28and shorter working hours of the 1960s

0:22:28 > 0:22:32meant we had more time and money to spend on our gardens.

0:22:32 > 0:22:35As much as £100 million a year.

0:22:35 > 0:22:38And our spending was helped along by a new phenomenon

0:22:38 > 0:22:42that had started life in America. Where else?

0:22:42 > 0:22:45The gardening centre may well do for Syon House

0:22:45 > 0:22:50what sideshows and lions have done for other historic homes.

0:22:50 > 0:22:52We saw the arrival of the garden centre.

0:22:52 > 0:22:55And again, linked to social mobility,

0:22:55 > 0:23:00people owning cars, they could drive off for an outing in the afternoon.

0:23:00 > 0:23:04- ANNOUNCER:- One of the things that makes the centre different

0:23:04 > 0:23:06is that it contains what might be called

0:23:06 > 0:23:08the first gardening supermarket.

0:23:08 > 0:23:11And suddenly, this one stop shop for anything related to the garden, from

0:23:11 > 0:23:15plants to furniture to barbecues, and it changed everything about how

0:23:15 > 0:23:19we garden. It changed that need to nurture a plant from a seed

0:23:19 > 0:23:23or a cutting, because why bother, you could go and buy a mature plant

0:23:23 > 0:23:26and bring it back and pop it in and there it was, finished.

0:23:26 > 0:23:31It took away the mystery. It took away some of the problems of growing.

0:23:31 > 0:23:33And it made gardening much more accessible in many ways,

0:23:33 > 0:23:35for people that didn't want to get their hands dirty.

0:23:35 > 0:23:40Garden centres were agricultural and therefore, they could sell their

0:23:40 > 0:23:44own stock on a Sunday.

0:23:44 > 0:23:47Garden centres were therefore one of the very few places people

0:23:47 > 0:23:49could go on a Sunday.

0:23:49 > 0:23:53In early garden centres, we all had the most enormous

0:23:53 > 0:23:57overflow car parks for Saturdays, and particularly Sunday afternoons.

0:23:57 > 0:24:01Many a garden centre operator would tell you in the '60s and even into

0:24:01 > 0:24:05the '70s, the most important job he had to do on a Sunday afternoon

0:24:05 > 0:24:09was direct the cars to get them into the space available after lunch.

0:24:09 > 0:24:12A small plant, a big plant.

0:24:12 > 0:24:15No need to wait for them to grow up nowadays.

0:24:15 > 0:24:17Just pick them up the size you want.

0:24:17 > 0:24:19Complete with a trolley to cart them off to the car.

0:24:21 > 0:24:23We were horticulturalists, going into retail,

0:24:23 > 0:24:27and we knew nothing about retail. We were learning as we went along.

0:24:27 > 0:24:30And the excitement and the fun of that was tremendous.

0:24:33 > 0:24:36Having a good-looking garden was becoming fashionable. Trouble is,

0:24:36 > 0:24:40it was still a bit too much like hard work.

0:24:40 > 0:24:44And so our quest for ways of saving labour out in the garden continued.

0:24:44 > 0:24:48This time, in the chemical department.

0:24:48 > 0:24:52People used chemical sprays, quite freely, without any awareness

0:24:52 > 0:24:55of any impact to the environment or natural balance and so on.

0:24:55 > 0:24:59Because that really wasn't something that people had begun

0:24:59 > 0:25:01to have any awareness of.

0:25:01 > 0:25:05My father, you know, had this - very old-fashioned, looking back on it -

0:25:05 > 0:25:07this old pump thing, hand pump,

0:25:07 > 0:25:10and sort of reeked of garden chemicals everywhere.

0:25:10 > 0:25:13All of the old fashioned chemicals, Paraquat, DDT,

0:25:13 > 0:25:15were meant for an instant hit.

0:25:15 > 0:25:19You sprayed them, whatever the problem was, dropped dead instantly.

0:25:19 > 0:25:21Whereas these days, we've become much more sympathetic

0:25:21 > 0:25:24to the environment, much more aware,

0:25:24 > 0:25:25but it was that quick fix.

0:25:25 > 0:25:28That was important in those days.

0:25:28 > 0:25:30Saved you time.

0:25:30 > 0:25:34When you save that labour, or save that time, actually, it should give

0:25:34 > 0:25:39you time to do other things in the garden, like, shock horror, enjoy it.

0:25:59 > 0:26:04Good afternoon, and welcome once again to our gardening club.

0:26:10 > 0:26:15Gardening had had us glued to the wireless since the '40s and '50s.

0:26:15 > 0:26:18So it was only a matter of time before television got its turn.

0:26:18 > 0:26:19Even if it was still black and white.

0:26:19 > 0:26:23Not exactly ideal for flowers.

0:26:23 > 0:26:26And the person at the helm was a former parks man,

0:26:26 > 0:26:31who became such a sensation that most of us remember him to this day.

0:26:31 > 0:26:33Do I remember Percy Thrower?!

0:26:33 > 0:26:36What sort of a question is that?!

0:26:36 > 0:26:40We still use Percy Thrower's Gardening Encyclopaedia, or whatever it's called.

0:26:40 > 0:26:44There were very few television programmes about gardening.

0:26:44 > 0:26:48My hero always has been and always will be Percy Thrower.

0:26:48 > 0:26:51He looked like a gardener, he talked like a gardener, and that

0:26:51 > 0:26:54was very much hands-on gardening.

0:26:54 > 0:26:58If you've only got room for one plum tree on a wall, I suggest Victoria.

0:26:58 > 0:27:02My very earliest memory of gardening on television

0:27:02 > 0:27:05was Percy Thrower for magnolias.

0:27:05 > 0:27:07And it was the only gardening programme,

0:27:07 > 0:27:11in fact, only television programme I was allowed to watch on television.

0:27:11 > 0:27:17Last week, in Madeira, we were looking at the Canary date palm,

0:27:17 > 0:27:19the avocado pear with the young fruits on.

0:27:19 > 0:27:22Percy was the person that gave you a global

0:27:22 > 0:27:27appreciation of what was going on. He went to places like Chelsea.

0:27:27 > 0:27:29He went to the Southport Flower Show.

0:27:29 > 0:27:31He brought a new world of horticulture to me.

0:27:33 > 0:27:37Here I've got a lemon tree in flower.

0:27:37 > 0:27:40I'd say probably that Percy Thrower was like the uncle you never had.

0:27:41 > 0:27:46He knew it all, but he wore his learning lightly.

0:27:46 > 0:27:49As we get into the spring, the summer and into the autumn,

0:27:49 > 0:27:52no doubt we shall get greenfly.

0:27:52 > 0:27:55He always seemed to be pruning things.

0:27:55 > 0:27:58- He was obsessed with pruning. - This one can be clipped off there,

0:27:58 > 0:28:01- just above that.- He was quite firm. A little bit strict.

0:28:01 > 0:28:05He wasn't like the ones nowadays that want to be your best mate.

0:28:05 > 0:28:09It was all about "you should do this or that".

0:28:09 > 0:28:13Now, before replanting, peat, garden compost,

0:28:13 > 0:28:18a little meal mixed into the soil, and then, planting these out.

0:28:18 > 0:28:20You were constantly being reminded,

0:28:20 > 0:28:24you know, that he was the expert, this is when you must do it,

0:28:24 > 0:28:26this is how you must do it,

0:28:26 > 0:28:29these are the rules, and you should stick by them.

0:28:29 > 0:28:33He never actually does any digging from what I can remember.

0:28:33 > 0:28:38He looks at an island bed that has got lots of heathers in it

0:28:38 > 0:28:42and he goes, here we have this plant

0:28:42 > 0:28:46and that plant, and sort of points at them, and then, he walks off.

0:28:46 > 0:28:48But you never see him really getting excited.

0:28:48 > 0:28:50Then he goes in the greenhouse and he hangs

0:28:50 > 0:28:53up his coat and there's quite a bit of action in the greenhouse.

0:28:53 > 0:28:55Televisually, it's very staid.

0:28:55 > 0:28:58These days, you look back, but that's how television was, you know.

0:28:58 > 0:29:02This is the attractive face of Britain.

0:29:02 > 0:29:05And this is the less attractive.

0:29:05 > 0:29:09Those of us who lived in 1960s towns remembered that they weren't exactly

0:29:09 > 0:29:11the greenest places to live in.

0:29:11 > 0:29:15Our towns needed cheering up, and fortunately, 1964

0:29:15 > 0:29:18saw the arrival of a new idea

0:29:18 > 0:29:21that would sort out our forlorn looking parks and streets for good.

0:29:21 > 0:29:25Thing is, it wasn't really a British idea at all.

0:29:27 > 0:29:31There was a very famous gardener called Roy Hay in the 1960s.

0:29:31 > 0:29:33He went out on holiday to France,

0:29:33 > 0:29:37and he couldn't believe every village and every town how they took

0:29:37 > 0:29:39so much pride and everything else.

0:29:39 > 0:29:43And he came back and thought, "Well, why shouldn't we be doing this?"

0:29:43 > 0:29:45Flowers, gardens,

0:29:45 > 0:29:50even window-boxes add a touch of colour to every kind of district.

0:29:50 > 0:29:52It's the three words from hell.

0:29:52 > 0:29:55Britain in Bloom. I'm sorry, it should be banned.

0:29:55 > 0:29:57# Where have all the flowers gone... #

0:29:57 > 0:30:02You're driving through the countryside, everything is green

0:30:02 > 0:30:07and beautiful and serene and you turn a corner into a little village

0:30:07 > 0:30:10and it's purple petunias, those wagon wheels

0:30:10 > 0:30:14that they put in the middle of the village and each spoke

0:30:14 > 0:30:17is a petunia of a different colour.

0:30:17 > 0:30:21Some people think there is a Captain Mainwaring element,

0:30:21 > 0:30:23that there's people going round

0:30:23 > 0:30:25saying, "Your hanging baskets are not looking good enough."

0:30:25 > 0:30:27I think there's a small element

0:30:27 > 0:30:31of that but Captain Mainwaring is a very English thing.

0:30:31 > 0:30:37They go flat out to put flowers on absolutely every surface.

0:30:37 > 0:30:42And nobody seems to realise that this is so troubling to the eye

0:30:42 > 0:30:45that it's actually floral chaos.

0:30:45 > 0:30:49People are often snooty about Britain in Bloom because...

0:30:49 > 0:30:51It's a class thing...

0:30:51 > 0:30:56Because they see it as being really rather common.

0:30:57 > 0:31:02For me, the crystallisation of the ghastliness of it all

0:31:02 > 0:31:04is the hanging basket.

0:31:04 > 0:31:06Which I would shoot down,

0:31:06 > 0:31:09I would ride roughshod through villages at midnight

0:31:09 > 0:31:11shooting down the hanging baskets.

0:31:11 > 0:31:16They disfigure some of the prettiest buildings in England.

0:31:16 > 0:31:19When I come up to London I get on the train at Kemble,

0:31:19 > 0:31:23a fabulous, posh station, it's where Prince Charles gets the train.

0:31:23 > 0:31:28It's constantly referred to as one of Britain's bloomiest stations.

0:31:28 > 0:31:32They were decorating it the other day and to celebrate it took all

0:31:32 > 0:31:35the hanging baskets down and put them in the washing machine.

0:31:35 > 0:31:39But I'd never noticed. Because fuchsia are so repellent

0:31:39 > 0:31:44in their natural state, I'd always assumed that these hideous,

0:31:44 > 0:31:48throbbing, disco flowers were real but they are not.

0:31:50 > 0:31:53They are made in China. You can see written underneath it.

0:31:53 > 0:31:57I wonder whether the Britain in Bloom authorities know

0:31:57 > 0:32:00Kemble station has non-real fuchsia.

0:32:05 > 0:32:12So much for flowers in our towns, but what about growing veg?

0:32:12 > 0:32:14Another essential element

0:32:14 > 0:32:18of the 1960s urban landscape was the good old allotment.

0:32:18 > 0:32:22Mainly located alongside railways and canals,

0:32:22 > 0:32:25they were still in regular use.

0:32:25 > 0:32:28Allotments have a tremendously honourable history.

0:32:28 > 0:32:30They go back to the Middle Ages.

0:32:30 > 0:32:33There were patches of ground given

0:32:33 > 0:32:36to people to be able to sustain themselves and their families.

0:32:36 > 0:32:41Your full allotment is a chain long,

0:32:41 > 0:32:44a cricket wicket, 22 yards.

0:32:44 > 0:32:46That is a big area.

0:32:46 > 0:32:49I've liked allotments not so much because of the plants

0:32:49 > 0:32:52that grow there but because of the people that grow them.

0:32:52 > 0:32:55I like the camaraderie that springs up.

0:32:55 > 0:32:59A great sense of community.

0:32:59 > 0:33:02Our allotment site was a collection,

0:33:02 > 0:33:04rather romantically, of ramshackle sheds,

0:33:04 > 0:33:11bits of greenhouses made out of old windows, polythene, corrugated iron.

0:33:11 > 0:33:15There's always an old Joe or old Fred at an allotment who knows more

0:33:15 > 0:33:21than anybody else, and everybody else bows to his greater knowledge.

0:33:21 > 0:33:24It was just like heaven.

0:33:24 > 0:33:28When I got that allotment and it was mine,

0:33:28 > 0:33:31I felt like I belonged to Britain.

0:33:31 > 0:33:33It was my bit of land, my bit of England.

0:33:47 > 0:33:49# I've been cheated by you

0:33:49 > 0:33:51you since I don't know when... #

0:33:51 > 0:33:55The '70s were here and the litany of strikes and blackouts didn't

0:33:55 > 0:33:57stop us enjoying ourselves.

0:33:57 > 0:33:59Television was now in colour.

0:33:59 > 0:34:02Shorter weeks meant leisure was the new buzz word.

0:34:02 > 0:34:06And when we could actually get petrol we went out in our cars like

0:34:06 > 0:34:10never before, and drew inspiration for our gardens back at home.

0:34:10 > 0:34:14In the '70s, people were out and about a lot more.

0:34:14 > 0:34:16They were travelling, visiting gardens,

0:34:16 > 0:34:18going off for a Sunday afternoon

0:34:18 > 0:34:22in the local countryside.

0:34:22 > 0:34:26It's an historical fact that Britain is renowned for its gardens.

0:34:26 > 0:34:30Over the years, the gardens created have developed character reflecting

0:34:30 > 0:34:34the inborn expertise inherent in this country.

0:34:34 > 0:34:39And this idea of seeing a beautifully kept, beautifully manicured gardens

0:34:39 > 0:34:43and planting schemes would then be the little catalyst to go home

0:34:43 > 0:34:45and do something rather special.

0:34:45 > 0:34:48It's a place of great beauty and charm, in which to spend

0:34:48 > 0:34:51a relaxing day out with the family.

0:34:51 > 0:34:54It must also instil in many the desire to return home and emulate

0:34:54 > 0:34:56what they've seen.

0:34:56 > 0:35:00It's very possible that the first time I ever realised

0:35:00 > 0:35:02what a garden could be like

0:35:02 > 0:35:06was when I went for the first time to Sissinghurst.

0:35:14 > 0:35:17And then I realised something about the British.

0:35:17 > 0:35:21Their true expression of their voluptuousness,

0:35:21 > 0:35:24their love of pleasure,

0:35:24 > 0:35:27is not to be found in a conversation

0:35:27 > 0:35:32or the social relationships, but they garden like sensualists.

0:35:32 > 0:35:37They garden in the most extraordinary, opulent, mad way.

0:35:37 > 0:35:39I suppose it's something when you

0:35:39 > 0:35:43see a garden on a big, big scale it takes your breath away.

0:35:43 > 0:35:45You've only have to go and see some of those

0:35:45 > 0:35:50great historical gardens to realise that we couldn't possibly do it now.

0:35:50 > 0:35:55I think it's very profound in the British psyche that the garden

0:35:55 > 0:35:59that you have is a miniature of the grand garden,

0:35:59 > 0:36:04the great Capability Brown or Repton landscape that you visited.

0:36:18 > 0:36:23Back in our '70s homes, our passion for gardening was gathering pace.

0:36:23 > 0:36:26No longer content with just tending our back gardens,

0:36:26 > 0:36:30we started to use our front gardens for a bit of showing off.

0:36:30 > 0:36:34They quickly became a way of showing the neighbours how genteel,

0:36:34 > 0:36:36prosperous and clever we were.

0:36:36 > 0:36:41I always think that a front garden is the outside version of a front room.

0:36:41 > 0:36:47It's a space that's incredibly over-formal, totally pointless and all about showing off.

0:36:47 > 0:36:51It's got all the most ornate bits that you feel make you look posh.

0:36:51 > 0:36:55You even get a lot of the cliches, a lot of the devices,

0:36:55 > 0:36:58that most people associate with the National Trust but in miniature.

0:36:58 > 0:37:04You get tiny, concrete, heraldic beasts by the side of a drive.

0:37:06 > 0:37:11If you can possibly bend your drive, even though it's just that much,

0:37:11 > 0:37:17enough to make it really annoying to negotiate in your Datsun Cherry.

0:37:17 > 0:37:21But that's gracious to be able to do that rather than a straight line.

0:37:21 > 0:37:24# Why do you whisper green grass... #

0:37:27 > 0:37:31The best one was the '70s with the pampas grass, which is supposed

0:37:31 > 0:37:33to mean that you are swingers.

0:37:33 > 0:37:37If you had that outside it meant it was definitely worth knocking

0:37:37 > 0:37:39on the door of an evening clutching a bottle of Babycham.

0:37:39 > 0:37:46It's one thing my stepmother was exceptionally proud of.

0:37:46 > 0:37:51I think she would invite people just to see her pampas grass.

0:37:51 > 0:37:53She would count the plumes.

0:37:53 > 0:37:55"This year we had 12.

0:37:55 > 0:37:56"We only had nine last year."

0:37:56 > 0:38:00It says lots about a garden and the garden owner.

0:38:00 > 0:38:06Pampas grass, very, very difficult to eradicate once it's in your garden.

0:38:06 > 0:38:09The only way of going about it is with a pick axe and a bonfire.

0:38:09 > 0:38:12I do mean that.

0:38:12 > 0:38:16More than ever we loved emulating the grander gardening traditions

0:38:16 > 0:38:18in our '70s gardens.

0:38:18 > 0:38:22One of these had enjoyed a huge revival in the stately homes

0:38:22 > 0:38:23of the 19th century.

0:38:33 > 0:38:39Topiary was something that you had a fleet of gardeners doing.

0:38:39 > 0:38:44It really demonstrated your supremacy over Mother Nature because there

0:38:44 > 0:38:46she is, she's growing you a bush

0:38:46 > 0:38:49which is bush-shaped, but you are instructing

0:38:49 > 0:38:51someone to turn it into a peacock.

0:38:51 > 0:38:54When it all starts going absolutely horribly wrong

0:38:54 > 0:38:58is when it happens in Swindon and it's actually the Flying Scotsman.

0:39:02 > 0:39:07Men have got a bit of a thing about trimming hedges.

0:39:07 > 0:39:10They quite enjoy it, getting that perfect level top

0:39:10 > 0:39:13and the smooth sides.

0:39:13 > 0:39:15It's the woodwork that they never did.

0:39:15 > 0:39:19It's that coffee-table they never made, the shelves they never put up.

0:39:19 > 0:39:21They can do that in the garden,

0:39:21 > 0:39:25it actually doesn't require a great deal of talent.

0:39:25 > 0:39:28But there is something about that tiny, pocket handkerchief garden,

0:39:28 > 0:39:31and that it's got the entire

0:39:31 > 0:39:34cast of Alice in Wonderland through the medium of bush.

0:39:49 > 0:39:52Another of our little garden crazes in the 1970s

0:39:52 > 0:39:54also had a long tradition.

0:39:54 > 0:39:58These days, apparently, they're only stylish if they're ironic.

0:39:58 > 0:40:01Gnomes and the broad question of gnomology

0:40:01 > 0:40:06is a sort of vexed question, if you like, in horticultural history.

0:40:06 > 0:40:09There's a long and venerable history to gnomes.

0:40:09 > 0:40:13A very dear friend, who actually I thought had quite a lot of taste

0:40:13 > 0:40:16gave me a gnome for Christmas.

0:40:16 > 0:40:19When people walk up the garden and they see him, you can tell

0:40:19 > 0:40:21they never quite know what to say.

0:40:21 > 0:40:24Should I mention the gnome, is he there as a joke?

0:40:24 > 0:40:30We all know the story of the eccentric lord going off and getting "gnomen figuren"

0:40:30 > 0:40:32as they were called from Germany,

0:40:32 > 0:40:35which are table ornaments, very smart things

0:40:35 > 0:40:36like Meissen porcelain and so on.

0:40:36 > 0:40:41Instead, he had an interesting moment and decided to go out and put them

0:40:41 > 0:40:44in the garden, arrange them around in his grotto.

0:40:44 > 0:40:48I absolutely, genuinely like garden gnomes.

0:40:48 > 0:40:51I think there's something

0:40:51 > 0:40:56really comfortingly pretentiousless about them.

0:40:56 > 0:41:00You can't get any lower than a garden gnome.

0:41:12 > 0:41:17With foreign holidays now taking us as far as the Alps and Pyrenees,

0:41:17 > 0:41:21the alpine look became a signature element of the '70s garden.

0:41:27 > 0:41:31You had, in the '70s, certain signature things.

0:41:31 > 0:41:34You have a craze for something like dwarf conifers.

0:41:34 > 0:41:38And dwarf conifers are the horticultural equivalent

0:41:38 > 0:41:41of flared trousers nowadays.

0:41:41 > 0:41:43If you look at these things,

0:41:43 > 0:41:47they are so redolent of that particular time and place.

0:41:47 > 0:41:50Glenda's garden is a geriatric unit.

0:41:50 > 0:41:54Somewhere where, as we grow older, there will be less and less to do

0:41:54 > 0:41:58and yet we should enjoy the colour and the pleasure of it.

0:41:58 > 0:42:01Dwarf conifers were the thing, you know.

0:42:01 > 0:42:07These were the things you should go for. Those mixed with heathers.

0:42:07 > 0:42:11Lavish and lashings of heathers and lovely conifers

0:42:11 > 0:42:13in every shape and size and colour.

0:42:17 > 0:42:20We were always on the look out for ways

0:42:20 > 0:42:22of labour-saving in our gardens.

0:42:22 > 0:42:25Composting had long been one of the most arduous jobs.

0:42:25 > 0:42:29Soon, pre-mixed compost became available on the market

0:42:29 > 0:42:33and our lives got that little bit easier.

0:42:33 > 0:42:39For generations, compost making was the sweat of gardening.

0:42:39 > 0:42:42Yes, there were all manner of books that told you how to do it,

0:42:42 > 0:42:46how not to do it, stop it turning out as black slime, how to make it,

0:42:46 > 0:42:50you know, useful in the garden. It was hard work.

0:42:51 > 0:42:55A team of experts with the resources of Fisons research organisation

0:42:55 > 0:43:00at Levington around them, have put in a vast amount of work to develop

0:43:00 > 0:43:03what we now know as Levington compost.

0:43:03 > 0:43:07Suddenly, the greatest labour-saving device of the lot,

0:43:07 > 0:43:11you could buy compost in a bag,

0:43:11 > 0:43:13in the early '70s some time.

0:43:13 > 0:43:16This was available through this new breed of garden centre.

0:43:16 > 0:43:20Now, the fact that the compost you could buy in the bag has got nothing

0:43:20 > 0:43:24whatsoever to do with compost that you made yourself.

0:43:24 > 0:43:27I mean, it's a completely different substance.

0:43:27 > 0:43:30It's for planting in, it's not for soil improvement,

0:43:30 > 0:43:34it's not to give you additional nutrients into your ground.

0:43:34 > 0:43:38It's just a planting medium but they called it compost.

0:43:38 > 0:43:41People have been muddled up about compost ever since.

0:43:41 > 0:43:45# Old MacDonald has no garden Ee, ay, ee, ay, oh!

0:43:45 > 0:43:50# Did you know with help from Fisons He can make things grow? #

0:43:50 > 0:43:55Pre-mixed compost in a bag led to an instant hit - the gro-bag.

0:43:55 > 0:43:59It wasn't only a godsend for those of us who had gardens, it was loved

0:43:59 > 0:44:03by many people living in flats or on estates who didn't.

0:44:03 > 0:44:07# Bye bye Baby Baby goodbye

0:44:10 > 0:44:17# Bye bye Baby Don't make me cry

0:44:17 > 0:44:22For some people who are gardening in quite difficult circumstances,

0:44:22 > 0:44:26people in tower blocks with just a balcony,

0:44:26 > 0:44:28for example, it suddenly made it possible for them

0:44:28 > 0:44:31to have a fully mature garden on the balcony.

0:44:31 > 0:44:35- Did you put the guard round?- Yes.

0:44:35 > 0:44:37We thought they'd make it look like

0:44:37 > 0:44:40a little garden, because we love flowers.

0:44:40 > 0:44:43They grew their herbs, they could grow flowers, you know.

0:44:43 > 0:44:47They could do that without having to, you know,

0:44:47 > 0:44:50hump barrowloads of stuff up in the lift.

0:44:50 > 0:44:55'I've had 17lbs of tomatoes out the grow bags which was amazing, really.

0:44:55 > 0:45:00'For such a small bag, to have all those many tomatoes come out of it.'

0:45:03 > 0:45:06Another great British gardening institution was

0:45:06 > 0:45:09now essential viewing on the telly.

0:45:09 > 0:45:11If you think back to the 1970s

0:45:11 > 0:45:15and those vegetable shows, they were extraordinary because there were

0:45:15 > 0:45:19these monstrous vegetables, quite unlike anything to do with reality.

0:45:19 > 0:45:23We had leeks like that, potatoes like this, onions like that.

0:45:23 > 0:45:27There are one or two dishes here which,

0:45:27 > 0:45:31it's difficult to express the joy and pleasure in viewing them.

0:45:31 > 0:45:36Most of the men who grew them were complete size queens.

0:45:36 > 0:45:40They were desperate to grow something bigger than their mates.

0:45:40 > 0:45:45How are you going to express in words the quality?

0:45:45 > 0:45:50Almost as if they were tribesmen in the hills of New Guinea

0:45:50 > 0:45:55who, if they didn't grow the biggest yam would probably not find a wife.

0:45:55 > 0:45:59If you look here, you've got the length but not the girth.

0:45:59 > 0:46:01What is it about vegetable competitions?

0:46:01 > 0:46:05What is the point of growing something to see how big it can get?

0:46:05 > 0:46:08I rather feel here

0:46:08 > 0:46:12perfection, which has never been reached,

0:46:12 > 0:46:15is approximately yes or apparently...

0:46:15 > 0:46:18- We're almost there.- Exactly.

0:46:18 > 0:46:21I learned all the tricks about those vegetables.

0:46:21 > 0:46:24You grew your leeks in a drainpipe

0:46:24 > 0:46:30and you wrapped your celery in newspaper

0:46:30 > 0:46:33as you earthed it up to keep it lovely and clean.

0:46:33 > 0:46:36Oh, what a joy to look at those!

0:46:36 > 0:46:38It was always the same. It was always old men.

0:46:38 > 0:46:41Old men and their marrows. It's a size thing.

0:46:41 > 0:46:44Just look at the length of shaft.

0:46:44 > 0:46:48There's no semblance of a bulbous bottom.

0:46:48 > 0:46:50It all gets more and more penile.

0:46:50 > 0:46:54The longer the leek, the straighter the bean,

0:46:54 > 0:46:56the huger the onion.

0:46:56 > 0:46:59Nobody ever suggested tasting them.

0:46:59 > 0:47:05That exhibit of celery I shall carry for the rest of my life.

0:47:05 > 0:47:07Thank you.

0:47:07 > 0:47:11Anticyclones like this one have suddenly become all important

0:47:11 > 0:47:15and they're one of the main reasons why this country is now in one of

0:47:15 > 0:47:20the worst periods of drought since records began 200 years ago.

0:47:23 > 0:47:25You can say that again, Jack.

0:47:25 > 0:47:301976 was the most scorching summer in the UK for ages.

0:47:30 > 0:47:34Hosepipes were banned. Standpipes went up in the street.

0:47:34 > 0:47:37Out in the garden, everything burned to a crisp.

0:47:37 > 0:47:401976 was astonishing.

0:47:40 > 0:47:42I remember coming back from Jamaica and things here were

0:47:42 > 0:47:45all sort of pale yellow and the country

0:47:45 > 0:47:49really did look burnt. I remember my mum desperately having to save water

0:47:49 > 0:47:54from the sink to keep her beans going and the little rivulet at the end of

0:47:54 > 0:47:57the garden looked as though it would never come back.

0:47:57 > 0:47:58It was really astonishing.

0:47:58 > 0:48:02It seemed very, very strange but it turns out to have been

0:48:02 > 0:48:05a harbinger of things to come.

0:48:06 > 0:48:11There was only one thing for it - the UK's first ever

0:48:11 > 0:48:13hosepipe ban crack squad.

0:48:13 > 0:48:15By driving round the town, in this case Devizes,

0:48:15 > 0:48:20in a somewhat ostentatious van, the patrol men hope to discourage the use

0:48:20 > 0:48:23of sprinklers and hosepipes without having to bring a prosecution.

0:48:25 > 0:48:31However, suspiciously wet patches in driveways had to be investigated.

0:48:35 > 0:48:38Good morning, Madam. We're from Wessex Water Authority.

0:48:38 > 0:48:40There's a drought on

0:48:40 > 0:48:43and we're asking consumers to conserve water wherever possible.

0:48:43 > 0:48:46We've also got a Wessex Water saver, which you

0:48:46 > 0:48:50fill up with water and place in your cistern, away from any moving parts.

0:48:50 > 0:48:53Every time you pull the flush, you will save about two pints of water.

0:48:57 > 0:48:59As the '70s progressed, we were getting

0:48:59 > 0:49:01more adventurous with our gardens.

0:49:01 > 0:49:05We realised that they could be as much a place for people as plants.

0:49:05 > 0:49:10And today's programme is all about eating out of doors.

0:49:10 > 0:49:14The garden was becoming an extension of the house, an outdoor room,

0:49:14 > 0:49:18somewhere we could enjoy ourselves or even do a spot of entertaining.

0:49:18 > 0:49:21If you're going to have a barbecue, the first thing you need is charcoal.

0:49:21 > 0:49:26Charcoal comes in two different forms - loose like this -

0:49:26 > 0:49:30which is much easier to light, or briquettes like this.

0:49:30 > 0:49:32Before the '70s, and particularly before we

0:49:32 > 0:49:38all went on foreign travel, nobody had a barbecue in their garden.

0:49:38 > 0:49:42Really, all you have to do now is wait for 20 minutes.

0:49:42 > 0:49:46And that, coupled with the idea of the patio, and the outdoor room,

0:49:46 > 0:49:50outside room, meant that people did spend and still do to spend a lot

0:49:50 > 0:49:55more time socialising and eating and just sitting in their gardens.

0:49:55 > 0:49:57Oh, that's hot.

0:49:57 > 0:50:01I'm really distressed to think that most people

0:50:01 > 0:50:03regard the garden as an outdoor room.

0:50:03 > 0:50:08Rather than the point at which they interact with the natural world.

0:50:08 > 0:50:12Most people who have a barbecue

0:50:12 > 0:50:16in the back garden are driving people mad around them for about a mile,

0:50:16 > 0:50:20I'd say, what with the smell of their cooking and the rest of it.

0:50:20 > 0:50:23- Is it ready?- It certainly is. We're ready.

0:50:23 > 0:50:25'It was when the barbie came over, wasn't it, really?'

0:50:25 > 0:50:27And people started barbie-ing.

0:50:27 > 0:50:29And you would go into shops and people would say, "Are you

0:50:29 > 0:50:32"barbie-ing this weekend?"

0:50:32 > 0:50:34Which was really a terribly new thing.

0:50:34 > 0:50:40- Thank you.- By the 1970s, we had more and more stuff

0:50:40 > 0:50:42and our gardens and houses were smaller.

0:50:42 > 0:50:45Therefore more and more stuff, including the furniture,

0:50:45 > 0:50:46had to go outside.

0:50:46 > 0:50:50Therefore we got lots of these sort of interesting bits of

0:50:50 > 0:50:53garden furniture and we got things like Space Hoppers,

0:50:53 > 0:50:56which really improved the look of the garden, with all sorts

0:50:56 > 0:50:59of very brightly coloured plastic.

0:50:59 > 0:51:01Oh, hello!

0:51:13 > 0:51:18The 1980s came along and with it a whole load of money.

0:51:18 > 0:51:20Everything in Britain started going swanky.

0:51:20 > 0:51:25Our houses, our phones and our gardens.

0:51:25 > 0:51:27I think it was Asquith who said a prime minister must be

0:51:27 > 0:51:29a good butcher. Are you a good butcher?

0:51:29 > 0:51:31No, I'm not a good butcher

0:51:31 > 0:51:34but I have had to learn to carve the joint.

0:51:34 > 0:51:36There was a lot of money floating around.

0:51:36 > 0:51:38Suddenly, people were owning their own houses.

0:51:38 > 0:51:42As soon as you own your own house you have a garden that you care about.

0:51:42 > 0:51:44As soon as you care about it you want somebody to come

0:51:44 > 0:51:48- and do something with it. - Think power. Think shoulder-pads

0:51:48 > 0:51:51think, you know, Thatcher has come to the throne.

0:51:51 > 0:51:55Therefore, we want to be able to control our gardens.

0:52:00 > 0:52:02Gardening was becoming big business and we turned out

0:52:02 > 0:52:05at Chelsea like never before.

0:52:05 > 0:52:09If you've got a few £1,000 to spend then how about a conservatory?

0:52:09 > 0:52:13Just nine foot square and this one costs £3,500, if you have

0:52:13 > 0:52:17a little more than you can get something a little bigger, perhaps.

0:52:17 > 0:52:20With the gardening business

0:52:20 > 0:52:24expanding, everyone wanted a piece of the action.

0:52:29 > 0:52:33Even our Uncle Percy had got into hot water with the Beeb

0:52:33 > 0:52:37just years before for denoting a brand of garden chemical.

0:52:37 > 0:52:39And some vegetables to, grow them yourself?

0:52:39 > 0:52:41Well, with the help of ICI Garden First.

0:52:41 > 0:52:46Well, I've had no complaints with this lot so far.

0:52:46 > 0:52:49I remember the absolute shock

0:52:49 > 0:52:54when Percy lost his job, and it was from advertising chemicals.

0:52:54 > 0:52:59- You're the expert, what's wrong with my roses this year?- You haven't been feeding them right.

0:52:59 > 0:53:03- I always give mine ICI Rose Plus. - 'And that was it.'

0:53:03 > 0:53:08The BBC weren't going to tolerate that and Percy was gone.

0:53:12 > 0:53:17With Percy gone, 1980s gardening telly had to go on without him,

0:53:17 > 0:53:20and it did in the shape of Geoff Hamilton.

0:53:23 > 0:53:28Very much the bloke next door, Geoff became the new man of gardening,

0:53:28 > 0:53:32taking a more hands-on and perhaps less patriarchal approach.

0:53:32 > 0:53:36He even put a little bit of romance in the garden.

0:53:36 > 0:53:38I've just bought this bunch

0:53:38 > 0:53:41of carnations for my wife for purely romantic reasons.

0:53:41 > 0:53:46He was the first high-profile gardener, I believe, who really

0:53:46 > 0:53:49embraced organic gardening.

0:53:49 > 0:53:55And I think that, at a time when ordinary, you know, normal gardeners

0:53:55 > 0:53:59were also beginning to get rather anxious about pesticides.

0:53:59 > 0:54:02Look what I found. This actually is the caterpillar of

0:54:02 > 0:54:07an elephant hawk moth, but that of course is going back in the garden,

0:54:07 > 0:54:10another good reason, I think,

0:54:10 > 0:54:13for trying to cut the use of chemicals down to a minimum.

0:54:13 > 0:54:16I think he caught a public mood.

0:54:16 > 0:54:21I'm replacing another disastrous rose down here and I've already dug

0:54:21 > 0:54:25the hole which should be two foot square by at least a foot deep.

0:54:25 > 0:54:30'He not only got his hands dirty, he, I mean he not only told you,

0:54:30 > 0:54:32'he actually did it, you saw him actually doing it.'

0:54:32 > 0:54:38I think he was the one who drew most people in, I think, to gardening.

0:54:38 > 0:54:41Next week, we start building and throughout the series we are going

0:54:41 > 0:54:46to show you how to turn this,

0:54:46 > 0:54:47into this.

0:54:47 > 0:54:51But that doesn't look like an uber modern garden at all.

0:54:51 > 0:54:56Our 1980s gardens actually went a bit retro.

0:55:03 > 0:55:07Was it a reaction against all the pin-striped, red braced, filo-faxed

0:55:07 > 0:55:10clutching, champagne swilling, nonsense that lurked out there

0:55:10 > 0:55:12in '80s Britain?

0:55:12 > 0:55:13My guess is, probably.

0:55:13 > 0:55:18I think this whole yearning for some sort of cottage garden

0:55:18 > 0:55:22started in the '80s, it went on right through

0:55:22 > 0:55:25into the '90s and it is still going strong now.

0:55:25 > 0:55:29But it was this kind of yearning for something that never really was.

0:55:29 > 0:55:31The cottage garden was an invention

0:55:31 > 0:55:35of Wordsworth and his sister, it had never been like that.

0:55:35 > 0:55:40But people wanted to create this sort of place filled with flowers

0:55:40 > 0:55:42and perfume.

0:55:45 > 0:55:50In a mews near Knightsbridge, Mrs Coat gardens on the pavement.

0:55:50 > 0:55:56The effect I am trying to get is of an English cottage, country garden.

0:55:56 > 0:55:59Colours must be relative and if they are

0:55:59 > 0:56:04carefully matched together the beauty of each one is enhanced.

0:56:06 > 0:56:09You also have the cultural influence of things like the marriage of

0:56:09 > 0:56:13the Prince and Princess of Wales, you had new romanticism grumbling

0:56:13 > 0:56:15along in the background.

0:56:15 > 0:56:18Laura Ashley, you know, that was the big brand of the early '80s.

0:56:18 > 0:56:24Frilly collars, you know, sort of Princess, mutton-chopped sleeves.

0:56:24 > 0:56:28This yearning for something stable and glorious and lovely.

0:56:28 > 0:56:33So we looked back into our past and do you remember in 1977

0:56:33 > 0:56:36the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady was published.

0:56:36 > 0:56:40That went to eight reprints in just a matter of months.

0:56:40 > 0:56:44It was an extraordinary hit and it was this need, this yearning

0:56:44 > 0:56:46for a golden afternoon of the Edwardian age

0:56:46 > 0:56:49and that was reflected in our gardens.

0:56:58 > 0:57:04The quintessential part of any English garden in the 1780s,

0:57:04 > 0:57:08the 1880s, or now the 1980s was the lawn.

0:57:08 > 0:57:12Being British we can't just grow a bit of grass and sit on it, we have

0:57:12 > 0:57:15to make a great big deal of it and obsess about it being perfect.

0:57:15 > 0:57:20And needless to say that is very much the domain of men.

0:57:21 > 0:57:24When I was a child, the business of starting

0:57:24 > 0:57:26a lawn mower, you know, with the rope and the wooden

0:57:26 > 0:57:29bobble on the end of it and you

0:57:29 > 0:57:33wrapped it around whatever it was and pulled, and then it didn't start.

0:57:33 > 0:57:36It was a tremendous palaver.

0:57:36 > 0:57:40I think women very sensibly kept well away from that.

0:57:52 > 0:57:55It's June, OK, the sun is shining, it's a Saturday,

0:57:55 > 0:58:01you've had a hard week at work, you come back, Saturday morning,

0:58:01 > 0:58:03how lovely. What you do? You go to the shed and bring out

0:58:03 > 0:58:07this large, messy, dirty, smelly machine and you...

0:58:07 > 0:58:12and all that stuff goes on and you walk up and down and up and down and

0:58:12 > 0:58:16up and down, making a foul noise and what you end up in the end is a pile

0:58:16 > 0:58:19of stuff that composts very badly and smells of petrol and dog's mess.

0:58:19 > 0:58:21It's like men and motors, isn't it?

0:58:21 > 0:58:23You wash the car and it has to be immaculate.

0:58:23 > 0:58:26And the lawn is the same thing, if I am going to do it,

0:58:26 > 0:58:28I am going to do this properly.

0:58:28 > 0:58:30I am going to get the book,

0:58:30 > 0:58:32the lawn expert and I'm going to aerate it and scarify it

0:58:32 > 0:58:35and weed it and feed it and water it and mow it.

0:58:35 > 0:58:39And if I'm going to mow it, I've gotta have a good mower, haven't I?

0:58:39 > 0:58:42You know, I've got to have a really sharp, I've got

0:58:42 > 0:58:45to sharpen it every winter and change the oil and everything

0:58:45 > 0:58:48and it becomes a complete obsession.

0:58:49 > 0:58:51Fortunately, someone realised there was a mower

0:58:51 > 0:58:55that was perfect for women who are sick of waiting for their blokes

0:58:55 > 0:58:57to go out and mow the lawn.

0:58:57 > 0:58:59The hover mower.

0:58:59 > 0:59:01- Quite literally took off.- Flymo!

0:59:01 > 0:59:06New Flymo DXE, first ever hover mower to cut and collect the grass.

0:59:09 > 0:59:13And then suddenly they started to introduce the Flymo

0:59:13 > 0:59:15and all the rest of it and they would

0:59:15 > 0:59:18have some very attractive lady just swinging it gently around.

0:59:18 > 0:59:21And, of course, the lady thought if she can do it, so can I.

0:59:21 > 0:59:24They took an awful lot away from the man, he was totally deflated.

0:59:24 > 0:59:27He was OK for a few banks, if you wanted to go up a few banks

0:59:27 > 0:59:29like that,

0:59:29 > 0:59:33but you couldn't get stripes on it and actually and if you picked up

0:59:33 > 0:59:35a blade of grass after a hover mower has had a go at it

0:59:35 > 0:59:39you'll see it's really badly cut and it goes a bit brown on the edges.

0:59:39 > 0:59:42You need a really sharp cut with a sharp blade.

0:59:43 > 0:59:45CAR HORN

0:59:47 > 0:59:52No, I don't know, they're fun to use but no, I didn't approve.

0:59:59 > 1:00:021980s Britain was expanding.

1:00:02 > 1:00:06Our towns grew bigger, land got scarcer and gardens became smaller.

1:00:06 > 1:00:10Soon our hankering for privacy became a national pastime.

1:00:10 > 1:00:14You wouldn't want to meet the neighbours, God forbid!

1:00:14 > 1:00:17So one of the first jobs we are going to be doing is to show you how

1:00:17 > 1:00:19to put up a proper fence.

1:00:19 > 1:00:21In the good old days of gardening

1:00:21 > 1:00:27fences were to lean on and to talk over.

1:00:27 > 1:00:30Now they are barriers, to keep people out.

1:00:30 > 1:00:33Now the very first thing you have got to do when you put up a fence

1:00:33 > 1:00:35is to sort out your line.

1:00:35 > 1:00:39Do take care over this, I have known so many disputes between

1:00:39 > 1:00:41neighbours over an inch of land.

1:00:41 > 1:00:45These days with these high fences you hardly ever see your neighbour

1:00:45 > 1:00:50and I think that is indicative of today's enclosed people.

1:00:50 > 1:00:52'We have lost the sense of community in gardens.

1:00:52 > 1:00:54'We have almost lost the sense of community within neighbourhoods.'

1:00:54 > 1:00:57That's the other one, exactly right.

1:00:57 > 1:01:02I think by the 1980s, this little island of ours becomes

1:01:02 > 1:01:04more and more crowded.

1:01:04 > 1:01:05More and more people have their

1:01:05 > 1:01:10own houses and gardens but they are smaller houses and smaller gardens.

1:01:10 > 1:01:15So those become little empires which are fiercely, fiercely protected.

1:01:15 > 1:01:17You've got to make sure this panel is exactly on the same level

1:01:17 > 1:01:19as that one and it isn't.

1:01:19 > 1:01:22My parents weren't the sort to gossip over the garden wall,

1:01:22 > 1:01:24it just wasn't done.

1:01:24 > 1:01:27And the first thing I did when I got my own garden, actually,

1:01:27 > 1:01:32was to put fencing on top of the walls, to make it even higher.

1:01:32 > 1:01:34I want my space. I want

1:01:34 > 1:01:39a definite marker where my garden ends and someone else's begins.

1:01:39 > 1:01:41And the same thing down the bottom

1:01:41 > 1:01:43- if you put the hammer down the bottom now.- All right.

1:01:43 > 1:01:46You have this pretence that there is a wall, a bit like

1:01:46 > 1:01:49in the theatre, the third wall, there is

1:01:49 > 1:01:52an invisible wall and you don't acknowledge each other beyond that.

1:01:52 > 1:01:57It is all bound up with our English need for our own space, if you like.

1:01:57 > 1:02:01Well, I don't know, this is enough to put you off gardening for life.

1:02:03 > 1:02:07Possibly, but you probably never had to sit through this.

1:02:09 > 1:02:12The UK's first ever daytime TV show was in many ways a trail blazer.

1:02:12 > 1:02:16But maybe not when it came to gardening.

1:02:17 > 1:02:19Pebble Mill at One was always one of those very bizarre,

1:02:19 > 1:02:22very guilty pleasures, because we only ever got

1:02:22 > 1:02:24access to it when we were ill.

1:02:24 > 1:02:27Because there was no way you would watch Pebble Mill at One

1:02:27 > 1:02:28during school holidays.

1:02:28 > 1:02:32But if you were lying on the sofa and saying, "Yeah, Mum, I'm feeling a bit

1:02:32 > 1:02:34"better, I might be able to have some lemonade now."

1:02:34 > 1:02:36Weeds are not the love of gardeners, I can tell you.

1:02:36 > 1:02:40We thought we would have a look at that because this time of year

1:02:40 > 1:02:42there are a number of weed killers you can used very effectively.

1:02:42 > 1:02:50And Peter Seabrook had a tiny little border that was on the windy,

1:02:50 > 1:02:55windiest corner of the Pebble Mill studios.

1:02:55 > 1:03:00That he would then bore you so rigid for ten minutes about soil types.

1:03:00 > 1:03:01We have weed killers

1:03:01 > 1:03:04that will kill grass and leave everything else behind.

1:03:04 > 1:03:07Very clever but if you are using weed killers it is quite useful

1:03:07 > 1:03:10to have the right sort of container clearly marked.

1:03:10 > 1:03:12It was nothing to do with how it looked.

1:03:12 > 1:03:15It was nothing to do with actually making something that was stunning

1:03:15 > 1:03:20and there was no reveal. It was all about preparation and, you know...

1:03:23 > 1:03:25The 1990s arrived.

1:03:25 > 1:03:26Our thirst for retail therapy

1:03:26 > 1:03:30seemed unquenchable and we wanted everything in an instant.

1:03:30 > 1:03:33'The '90s were the hangover created by the exuberance

1:03:33 > 1:03:36'and the partying of the '80s.

1:03:36 > 1:03:39'I've got a tremendously soft spot for the '80s.'

1:03:39 > 1:03:41Can't bear the '90s.

1:03:41 > 1:03:46The '90s, Take That and you know, minimalism.

1:03:50 > 1:03:53Garden centres had turned into shopping centres

1:03:53 > 1:03:57in which we were spending as much as £4 billion every year.

1:03:57 > 1:04:00Now you could buy anything you could possibly want

1:04:00 > 1:04:03and even one or two things to do with gardening.

1:04:03 > 1:04:04Hello.

1:04:06 > 1:04:081990s gardening became something

1:04:08 > 1:04:11that didn't necessarily mean dirty hands

1:04:11 > 1:04:14but it did mean a lot of retail therapy.

1:04:14 > 1:04:19It meant going shopping and bringing whatever you chose home in the car,

1:04:19 > 1:04:25be it plants, furniture, lighting, pots, decorations,

1:04:25 > 1:04:29wind chimes, anything that you could furnish the house with, you could

1:04:29 > 1:04:31virtually furnish a garden with.

1:04:34 > 1:04:39'It is now what is known in the trade as "tea and wee".'

1:04:39 > 1:04:43It is a destination in its own right. You can actually get on

1:04:43 > 1:04:48a coach trip, and go to a big garden centre for a cup of tea and a wee.

1:04:48 > 1:04:52It just goes to show quite how powerful the term "gardening" is

1:04:52 > 1:04:57in terms of retail in this country.

1:04:57 > 1:04:59If you want to sell anything, make it sound like gardening,

1:04:59 > 1:05:01and people think, "That's OK then."

1:05:01 > 1:05:05Gardening is a good, clean, grown-up occupation which means that

1:05:05 > 1:05:08I can trust it because it's about horticulture.

1:05:13 > 1:05:16Gardener's World was booming as much as gardening itself,

1:05:16 > 1:05:21and regularly drawing an amazing six million viewers.

1:05:21 > 1:05:23No surprise there, given that it was now hosted

1:05:23 > 1:05:29by a man whose TV career had started as a trusty expert on Nationwide.

1:05:29 > 1:05:32He quickly became the nation's favourite

1:05:32 > 1:05:34and rather fanciable gardener.

1:05:34 > 1:05:40Alan Titchmarsh has conquered a series of rather dodgy hair styles

1:05:40 > 1:05:44to become the darling of television, really.

1:05:44 > 1:05:46Everything moved from gardening

1:05:46 > 1:05:49to chat shows, to the whole lot, and there's a very good reason for that.

1:05:49 > 1:05:51It's because it is very difficult,

1:05:51 > 1:05:55in fact I would say it was near nigh impossible to dislike Alan.

1:05:55 > 1:05:58The fork is fairly essential too, and on my soil, it is

1:05:58 > 1:06:01very stony, it is easier to dig with than is the spade.

1:06:01 > 1:06:04But I don't use a big one like this.

1:06:04 > 1:06:08Not being particularly macho, I go for one of these, the lady's fork.

1:06:08 > 1:06:10Alan was already a TV presenter.

1:06:10 > 1:06:13Nobody knew he was much of a gardener, even though

1:06:13 > 1:06:15he is a fantastic gardener

1:06:15 > 1:06:18and studied at Kew and had worked on amateur gardening magazines

1:06:18 > 1:06:21as an editor, so he had serious gardening credentials behind that.

1:06:21 > 1:06:26But then he brought his presenting skills, his clever presenting skills

1:06:26 > 1:06:28along with it, and a bit of

1:06:28 > 1:06:33drama, a bit of light and shade, and really understood television.

1:06:33 > 1:06:36They say that one orchid in your buttonhole

1:06:36 > 1:06:38makes you look a million dollars.

1:06:38 > 1:06:42This huge collection here, the like which I've never seen before,

1:06:42 > 1:06:44is worth more than £1 million. Wish I had just

1:06:44 > 1:06:46Wish I had just one of them.

1:06:46 > 1:06:48Alan was always very informative.

1:06:48 > 1:06:51I take away a lot from the programme.

1:06:51 > 1:06:56But he also sometimes makes me think as if I'm slightly losing my marbles.

1:06:56 > 1:06:58Rather than presenting a programme,

1:06:58 > 1:07:01it's as if he's bringing me a mug of cocoa and my tablets,

1:07:01 > 1:07:03saying, "There there, dear, you'll be all right."

1:07:03 > 1:07:05There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,

1:07:05 > 1:07:08she had so many children she didn't know what to do.

1:07:08 > 1:07:12For me, Chelsea Flower Show is all about the gosh factor.

1:07:12 > 1:07:16With Alan, yeah, Alan is pretty sexy. The women love him.

1:07:19 > 1:07:22Quite a few men love him too.

1:07:22 > 1:07:25I've seen Alan up at Gardeners' World Live at the NEC.

1:07:25 > 1:07:29He's been mobbed, mobbed by the over-eighties!

1:07:38 > 1:07:41Leylandii, what should be done about the tree

1:07:41 > 1:07:44that caused more neighbourhood disputes than any other?

1:07:44 > 1:07:48As our concerns for things like privacy and home security grew

1:07:48 > 1:07:52in the 1990s, the boundaries around our gardens reached new heights.

1:07:52 > 1:07:54Quite literally.

1:07:54 > 1:08:00Thanks to our love affair with the fastest-growing conifer on earth.

1:08:00 > 1:08:04Here's one at a year, that's the baby we saw at the beginning.

1:08:04 > 1:08:06This is how it looks a year later.

1:08:06 > 1:08:09This one is four years old. And this one is five.

1:08:09 > 1:08:14It's the leylandii's rapid growth and the way it blocks out light

1:08:14 > 1:08:18that's causing a staggering 17,000 hedge disputes a year.

1:08:18 > 1:08:22What it doesn't say on the label, or it does in very small letters,

1:08:22 > 1:08:27it says, "PS, does not stop growing after three years."

1:08:30 > 1:08:34Obviously, the nurseries and garden centres pushed this plant

1:08:34 > 1:08:36because it was easy to propagate and it grew very fast,

1:08:36 > 1:08:40and people do want hedges that grow fast.

1:08:40 > 1:08:43They just want it to stop.

1:08:43 > 1:08:45It just turned into a monster.

1:08:47 > 1:08:51A man has been charged with the murder of his neighbour

1:08:51 > 1:08:54who was shot dead after an argument about a garden hedge.

1:08:54 > 1:08:59One person was even murdered as a result, a dispute over a hedge!

1:08:59 > 1:09:00Appalling stuff.

1:09:00 > 1:09:04There could be a solution to that monster of suburbia, the leylandii.

1:09:04 > 1:09:06New proposals would mean home owners

1:09:06 > 1:09:09could get their council to chop down the trees

1:09:09 > 1:09:11if neighbours can't sort out the problem.

1:09:11 > 1:09:14Local authorities receive thousands of complaints

1:09:14 > 1:09:16about hedges every year, most on leylandii.

1:09:16 > 1:09:20Disgruntled neighbours can do little to have them controlled.

1:09:20 > 1:09:23The government plans to give councils new powers

1:09:23 > 1:09:25to intervene in disputes.

1:09:25 > 1:09:28For the residents of this quiet corner of the English countryside,

1:09:28 > 1:09:32the sound of the chainsaws marks a welcome end to a long battle.

1:09:37 > 1:09:38- Hello, Lawrence.- Hello!

1:09:38 > 1:09:44Hopefully our film will persuade you to help us out. This is our cottage.

1:09:44 > 1:09:45Oooh!

1:09:45 > 1:09:49Gardening programmes trudged along doing worthy things about the earth

1:09:49 > 1:09:52and what you do with the earth, and the plants and how you do seeds,

1:09:52 > 1:09:56and what you do for winter and how you look after your lawn.

1:09:56 > 1:09:59And then suddenly, bang! Diarmuid Gavin arrives.

1:09:59 > 1:10:05I mean, I love this. I think the bed outside is absolutely beautiful.

1:10:05 > 1:10:07That's the nicest thing, the view of that.

1:10:07 > 1:10:11If I had my way, I would get rid of all this actually. If it wasn't...

1:10:11 > 1:10:13Don't lean too hard on it!

1:10:13 > 1:10:16Home Front was at the time very unusual, and still is unusual

1:10:16 > 1:10:19because it wasn't... it never had a format to it.

1:10:19 > 1:10:21Above the very simple thing, which was that

1:10:21 > 1:10:26you had me doing the interior, and Diarmuid doing an out-terior.

1:10:26 > 1:10:30We were working for the same client, working for one householder,

1:10:30 > 1:10:34and it was supposed to be what they say in television is a "journey".

1:10:34 > 1:10:38I can't wait to get on with it and see what he comes up with. Excited.

1:10:38 > 1:10:43He comes into ordinary, perfectly nice suburban gardens,

1:10:43 > 1:10:48and he just... Some people say he wrecked them, I don't.

1:10:48 > 1:10:50I think he just caused revolution in them.

1:10:50 > 1:10:53The bottom border has been completely butchered.

1:10:53 > 1:10:58We were assured that the planting, the plants would be dealt with,

1:10:58 > 1:11:02and looked after, and to be honest, it looks like someone's just gone in,

1:11:02 > 1:11:05cut the tops off the plants and pushed it into polythene bags.

1:11:05 > 1:11:09He would do things in one way, and I'd do them in another way.

1:11:09 > 1:11:13There'd be a constant fight going on about who was doing it better.

1:11:13 > 1:11:17Because we were always vying for attention.

1:11:21 > 1:11:25But how do you feel now, that you have finally confronted

1:11:25 > 1:11:29this whole issue of creating a contemporary garden

1:11:29 > 1:11:31using a traditional idiom?

1:11:31 > 1:11:34And done it so successfully?

1:11:34 > 1:11:37Very happy.

1:11:37 > 1:11:40'Diarmuid and I would just say things

1:11:40 > 1:11:44'to see whether we could get away with it, which we often did.

1:11:44 > 1:11:47'We were horribly over-indulged.

1:11:47 > 1:11:49'We were fabulously over-indulged.'

1:11:49 > 1:11:51I'd go, "Let's go and have lunch in Venice."

1:11:51 > 1:11:55Diarmuid would go, "Let's go to the National Seed Collection."

1:11:55 > 1:11:56We'd all go, yeah...

1:12:06 > 1:12:09Sorry, were you expecting a design show?

1:12:12 > 1:12:15We did have a constant problem with Diarmuid's gardens.

1:12:15 > 1:12:19One of the classics was when he dug up someone's dead cat.

1:12:21 > 1:12:24I hope you haven't dug up my little Snoopy's grave out there.

1:12:26 > 1:12:27I did mention it. My cat.

1:12:29 > 1:12:33It's very sad. Earlier this year, one of my cats died.

1:12:33 > 1:12:36And we buried her here actually, underneath the tree here.

1:12:39 > 1:12:42- The cat's in there. - 'The worst possible thing happens,'

1:12:42 > 1:12:45he brings in a digger, and they're excavating,

1:12:45 > 1:12:47and suddenly there is the dead cat

1:12:47 > 1:12:49that has been in a beautifully tended grave

1:12:49 > 1:12:52for the last 15 years or something. And it's just, oh...

1:12:59 > 1:13:01So, the promise is...

1:13:01 > 1:13:03I think we're going to need to be very diplomatic.

1:13:03 > 1:13:06I'm not very good at that, Laurence.

1:13:15 > 1:13:18Hand in hand with the makeover culture, if you like,

1:13:18 > 1:13:21and the idea of gardens as an extension of the house,

1:13:21 > 1:13:23went the idea that improving your garden

1:13:23 > 1:13:28is money well spent, that it will increase the value of your house.

1:13:28 > 1:13:32And of course, this was at a time of a great property boom.

1:13:32 > 1:13:34I remember I was the editor of a magazine at the time,

1:13:34 > 1:13:37we commissioned a survey from estate agents

1:13:37 > 1:13:40who were telling us that, after the kitchen,

1:13:40 > 1:13:43the garden was the biggest selling point of any house.

1:13:43 > 1:13:46So it was an idea that it was investment,

1:13:46 > 1:13:49to spend money on your garden.

1:13:49 > 1:13:52And I think there is definitely an element of truth in that.

1:13:52 > 1:13:56It does persuade you, as well as the kitchen and bathroom.

1:14:06 > 1:14:09- BIG BEN STRIKES - # Millennium! #

1:14:09 > 1:14:13A new millennium dawned, and the world was starting to wake up

1:14:13 > 1:14:16to the dangers of global warming.

1:14:16 > 1:14:19Everything and everyone went green.

1:14:20 > 1:14:23But there was only so much we could do as individuals.

1:14:23 > 1:14:27And it slowly dawned on us that, just like 60 years before,

1:14:27 > 1:14:31sustainability might have to start in our own gardens.

1:14:38 > 1:14:42So who better to become head boy in this era of environmental angst

1:14:42 > 1:14:46than a man whose passion for all things organic was infectious?

1:14:46 > 1:14:48He wasn't a trained gardener.

1:14:48 > 1:14:51He was an ex-jeweller, no less.

1:14:51 > 1:14:54He was built like an oak tree, spoke like he meant it.

1:14:54 > 1:15:00He persuaded us to love and cherish our gardens like never before.

1:15:00 > 1:15:05Monty carried on the tradition of Gardeners' World,

1:15:05 > 1:15:07of taking gardeners on.

1:15:07 > 1:15:09So, he was the great composter.

1:15:09 > 1:15:12He certainly got me composting, if not the whole country.

1:15:12 > 1:15:16But also, the organic thing that Geoff Hamilton had started,

1:15:16 > 1:15:18Monty took that along.

1:15:18 > 1:15:21And here in the long borders, we are doing an experiment.

1:15:21 > 1:15:26We're using just rainwater on this side, just grey water on that side.

1:15:26 > 1:15:30We want to compare the effect on pretty much the same plants.

1:15:30 > 1:15:33Particularly with wildlife, bringing it into the garden,

1:15:33 > 1:15:36rather than getting rid of it.

1:15:36 > 1:15:39And I associate Monty very much with that,

1:15:39 > 1:15:41very much with natural gardening.

1:15:41 > 1:15:43And for a chemical gardener,

1:15:43 > 1:15:45you can paint the leaves with a glyphosate.

1:15:45 > 1:15:48I am an organic gardener, I wouldn't dream of doing that.

1:15:48 > 1:15:50Monty has got the most wonderful hands.

1:15:50 > 1:15:54It's almost as if they're tattooed with topsoil.

1:15:54 > 1:15:57All the middle-aged women in the world have the idea of

1:15:57 > 1:16:01Monty's earth-stained hands running across their tender parts.

1:16:01 > 1:16:05It used to send thrills through the whole of England on Friday evening.

1:16:15 > 1:16:17With Monty to guide us,

1:16:17 > 1:16:21our new interest in all-organic growing and all things green

1:16:21 > 1:16:24meant that grow your own was the new big thing,

1:16:24 > 1:16:28and the vegetable plot an essential part of every garden.

1:16:28 > 1:16:32Suddenly, you couldn't get an allotment for love nor money.

1:16:32 > 1:16:35I think the resurgence of the passion for allotments

1:16:35 > 1:16:40comes out of a recognition of modern living,

1:16:40 > 1:16:44what modern life is about, and people wanting to return to

1:16:44 > 1:16:47the good old things in life, the things that really mean something.

1:16:47 > 1:16:50- Eddie.- Eddie! Oh!

1:16:50 > 1:16:52'The camaraderie that comes,'

1:16:52 > 1:16:56and you cannot be on an allotment site and be a loner.

1:16:56 > 1:16:57It doesn't work.

1:16:57 > 1:17:01People who do allotments, they are not made.

1:17:01 > 1:17:06I don't think they're made. They are born. A special breed.

1:17:11 > 1:17:16'I think allotments today reflect a wide cross-section of society.

1:17:16 > 1:17:20'We have got everybody, sex, religion, age, money,

1:17:20 > 1:17:24'it doesn't matter any more in the allotment society.

1:17:24 > 1:17:25'They want to grow.'

1:17:27 > 1:17:29Thank you for attending the meeting.

1:17:29 > 1:17:32We are here tonight to discuss the show.

1:17:32 > 1:17:38The committee can be a fearsome thing in the allotment movement.

1:17:38 > 1:17:42The big, well-organised committees have real power.

1:17:42 > 1:17:46- What time do we have to have the things in, 12 o'clock, is it?- 12.

1:17:46 > 1:17:50'And there are rules about what you can grow, rules about

1:17:50 > 1:17:53'how you can grow, how tidy it has to be.

1:17:53 > 1:17:57'How long the grass is allowed to be on the path beside your allotment.'

1:18:00 > 1:18:03There doesn't seem to be a rule on rusty corrugated iron,

1:18:03 > 1:18:06because there is quite a lot of that about on most allotment sites.

1:18:06 > 1:18:08That seems to get through the net.

1:18:10 > 1:18:14They hit the right political agenda. It gives you instant organic food.

1:18:14 > 1:18:17We are about to die of starvation because of the recession,

1:18:17 > 1:18:18it will sort that out.

1:18:18 > 1:18:21And it gives you green exercise.

1:18:21 > 1:18:23You can look good when you reappear in your office,

1:18:23 > 1:18:27cos you have a little bit of grime around your fingers. Very cool.

1:18:29 > 1:18:33Decades of fashions and trends in gardening

1:18:33 > 1:18:36had got us into loving our gardens like never before.

1:18:36 > 1:18:38What's more, garden design

1:18:38 > 1:18:41was something everyone could now try for themselves.

1:18:41 > 1:18:44It was affordable and cool to redo your garden,

1:18:44 > 1:18:47and makeovers soon went properly showbiz.

1:18:47 > 1:18:49It's a nightmare.

1:18:49 > 1:18:52It's that idea that you'll get home,

1:18:52 > 1:18:55you will open the door and look through

1:18:55 > 1:18:59and they have been in your garden while you're away and redesigned it.

1:19:02 > 1:19:05Ground Force, the essential makeover programme.

1:19:05 > 1:19:11It opened with chirpy band music and lorries running around the place.

1:19:11 > 1:19:13You end up in this small garden somewhere...

1:19:13 > 1:19:17Oh. They probably think I'm from a cosmetics firm.

1:19:17 > 1:19:21'Mrs Smith decided that she really wanted to have her garden done'

1:19:21 > 1:19:24as a surprise for Mr Smith, so Mr Smith, they quickly invented

1:19:24 > 1:19:28some second cousin in Aberdeen, and he was sent off to Aberdeen.

1:19:28 > 1:19:29Tommy, Charlie...

1:19:29 > 1:19:34'Mrs Smith welcomed with open arms Alan Titchmarsh, Charlie Dimmock

1:19:34 > 1:19:37- 'and Tommy Walsh, who would come in and be chirpy, generally.'- Crikey!

1:19:37 > 1:19:40Fine, OK, I've got the solution. Forget the plan.

1:19:40 > 1:19:43Two mountain goats, one tethered there, one tethered there.

1:19:43 > 1:19:46They graze up and down.

1:19:46 > 1:19:49'Alan would draw a picture and say, "Yeah, we are going to do that."'

1:19:49 > 1:19:52And then it would be all action.

1:19:59 > 1:20:01Charlie was the one...

1:20:01 > 1:20:05This extraordinary Daily Mail phenomenon she became,

1:20:05 > 1:20:08purely because she was sort of short on underwear.

1:20:15 > 1:20:19There's this girl who was actually very good at doing what she did,

1:20:19 > 1:20:21and building ponds and fountains,

1:20:21 > 1:20:26and had this Pre-Raphaelite hair that cascaded around the place.

1:20:26 > 1:20:30And then everything sort of swinging in various different directions.

1:20:30 > 1:20:35And that more than anything else got more chaps out of their sheds,

1:20:35 > 1:20:38and into gardening, than... There was a moment when

1:20:38 > 1:20:41she was possibly the most famous person in the whole country.

1:20:45 > 1:20:49The householder then comes back at the 11th hour,

1:20:49 > 1:20:52is lured into the garden, and then suddenly, you know, there it is!

1:20:53 > 1:20:55Oh my God!

1:20:59 > 1:21:02- Oh!- Hello, you. Nice to see you.- And you!

1:21:02 > 1:21:05It's not only completely changed, but there you've got

1:21:05 > 1:21:10Charlie and Tommy and Alan, standing there with a bottle of champagne.

1:21:10 > 1:21:12Meanwhile, the entire street,

1:21:12 > 1:21:16the entire cul-de-sac has come out to be part of the celebration.

1:21:20 > 1:21:23I didn't see a garden that looked better at the end of the programme

1:21:23 > 1:21:25than it did at the beginning.

1:21:25 > 1:21:27All I saw was things I really don't...

1:21:27 > 1:21:29that don't belong in a garden.

1:21:31 > 1:21:37There was a vocabulary of materials, if you like, in 1990s makeover.

1:21:37 > 1:21:40There was a great emphasis on ornamental decoration.

1:21:40 > 1:21:43So, mirrors, that sort of thing.

1:21:43 > 1:21:46I really like the use of the mirror here.

1:21:46 > 1:21:48You get double the value from your plants.

1:21:48 > 1:21:51And the illusion that the garden is much longer than it is.

1:21:51 > 1:21:55Anybody who puts a mirror in a garden is very cruel.

1:21:55 > 1:21:58The birds just fly straight into it, bang,

1:21:58 > 1:22:02and you end up with dead sparrows around your feature

1:22:02 > 1:22:03which has cost a fortune.

1:22:03 > 1:22:07Garden furniture usually comes in spindly geometric,

1:22:07 > 1:22:11or else Mediterranean, again with tiley tops.

1:22:11 > 1:22:14The cobalt blue planters, they became the biggest cliche of all.

1:22:14 > 1:22:16And, of course, the water feature.

1:22:16 > 1:22:19The water pouring over there, the whole thing growing,

1:22:19 > 1:22:22- and the sound effect... - Oh, I can't wait!

1:22:22 > 1:22:23Yes you can!

1:22:24 > 1:22:29- What the hell?! - Ah yes, that's lovely.- No, it's not.

1:22:29 > 1:22:31There you go.

1:22:31 > 1:22:36- Oh yes. That is brilliant. - No, it isn't.

1:22:36 > 1:22:38- I absolutely love it.- No, you don't.

1:22:38 > 1:22:42They are designed for hot places.

1:22:42 > 1:22:47Water features, moving water is supposed to make the air cooler.

1:22:47 > 1:22:50It is Sintra, it is Granada.

1:22:50 > 1:22:52It is about air-conditioning.

1:22:52 > 1:22:57So doing it where it is raining half the time is completely pointless.

1:22:57 > 1:23:01And it means that designers and presenters and people like that

1:23:01 > 1:23:08can use nice, soothing, gardening words like "oasis", and "calm".

1:23:08 > 1:23:11And, "a refuge from the busyness of the outside world."

1:23:11 > 1:23:15That's the sort nonsense that designers like to talk sometimes.

1:23:15 > 1:23:18You've got some decking down. Yippee!

1:23:18 > 1:23:23There's one thing that is wrong with modern gardens, it is decking.

1:23:23 > 1:23:25There is no good decking.

1:23:25 > 1:23:28- One, two, three...- I know exactly why people use decking.

1:23:28 > 1:23:32Because it goes in very quickly, it's very clean and quick to put in.

1:23:32 > 1:23:36It free drains so you don't have to start digging excavations

1:23:36 > 1:23:40and putting in sub bases, and taking all that spoil away.

1:23:40 > 1:23:43It's quiet, it's warm, and it's a great weekend DIY project.

1:23:43 > 1:23:49A 2.4 metre by 3 metre deck, which is exactly the size that you buy

1:23:49 > 1:23:53timber from the builders' merchant, can go in in...

1:23:53 > 1:23:56you can do it a couple of hours in a makeover programme.

1:23:59 > 1:24:05There is a moment where gardening on television stopped being nourishing,

1:24:05 > 1:24:09and started being full of E-numbers.

1:24:09 > 1:24:12Small Town Gardens was a makeover programme, but a proper,

1:24:12 > 1:24:14serious makeover programme, you know?

1:24:14 > 1:24:18It wasn't just turning up for a few days. There was a proper designer.

1:24:20 > 1:24:26So, they gave me this godforsaken ghastly, dank, wet, yucky...

1:24:26 > 1:24:30'hovel on a slope in Chippenham to redesign the garden for.

1:24:30 > 1:24:33'So, we did something with sort of rubber and chains

1:24:33 > 1:24:36'that was very slightly on the edge of pervy.'

1:24:36 > 1:24:40- I've got quite a lot.- This is starting to look quite kinky!

1:24:40 > 1:24:43The person whose garden it was was great.

1:24:43 > 1:24:46She said, I want something that nobody else will have.

1:24:46 > 1:24:49I bet nobody had anything else like this in Chippenham!

1:24:49 > 1:24:53Karen wanted a radical, unique design, a one-off,

1:24:53 > 1:24:54and she certainly got that.

1:24:54 > 1:24:59And Joe keeps telling me this, and reminds me of this, that I basically

1:24:59 > 1:25:01killed makeover programmes! And that was the end!

1:25:01 > 1:25:03That was the last makeover.

1:25:03 > 1:25:07Suddenly everyone was saying, enough makeover already!

1:25:07 > 1:25:09James has murdered it, so I murdered makeover.

1:25:14 > 1:25:17Gardening had changed beyond all recognition.

1:25:17 > 1:25:21In the space of 50 years it had gone from being a hobby for the retired

1:25:21 > 1:25:26or eccentric, to an national, and now fashionable, passion.

1:25:26 > 1:25:31It had become a big part of our lives and was big business.

1:25:31 > 1:25:34But makeover was dead, we'd wrecked the planet and, perhaps,

1:25:34 > 1:25:38we'd realised that gardens are too important anyway for the quick fix.

1:25:38 > 1:25:41So, where to go from here?

1:25:41 > 1:25:45I think what's happened over the last half century

1:25:45 > 1:25:49is that people have taken control of their own gardens

1:25:49 > 1:25:51to a much greater extent.

1:25:51 > 1:25:53I think it's very democratic.

1:25:53 > 1:25:57Everybody feels they can, everybody should feel they can.

1:25:58 > 1:26:00Well, the era we're in,

1:26:00 > 1:26:05of course, is defined by our ecological angst,

1:26:05 > 1:26:08and the garden is obviously an ideal interface if you like.

1:26:08 > 1:26:10It's where man meets nature,

1:26:10 > 1:26:14or where homeowners meet nature. So what we do with our garden

1:26:14 > 1:26:17is a sort of expression, really, of how we're coping with

1:26:17 > 1:26:21this ecological conundrum we face, and all of this guilt we've got.

1:26:21 > 1:26:26The sense it's us who ruined the planet, so how can we assuage that?

1:26:26 > 1:26:29But I think at the same time there is more and more understanding

1:26:29 > 1:26:33about how important gardens are in terms of our minds.

1:26:33 > 1:26:36They're therapy.

1:26:36 > 1:26:38We are now looking out

1:26:38 > 1:26:44into the cold, harsh outside world and it's a scary place again.

1:26:44 > 1:26:48It's economically buggered, we're worried about the climate,

1:26:48 > 1:26:51we've got globalised international terrorism,

1:26:51 > 1:26:56so what on earth are we going to do when we're beset by these problems?

1:26:56 > 1:26:57And the answer is garden.

1:26:57 > 1:26:59What I'm hoping for

1:26:59 > 1:27:06is that people stop gardening and let the wilderness take over.

1:27:07 > 1:27:10So, it's goodbye colour, goodbye decking,

1:27:10 > 1:27:16goodbye chain-hung pergolas and tumbledown walls

1:27:16 > 1:27:19and stainless steel this and goodness knows what,

1:27:19 > 1:27:22and it's back to roses and vegetables

1:27:22 > 1:27:29and cottagey-wottagey, pargety, potagy,

1:27:29 > 1:27:32gravely-wavely horticulture, really.

1:27:50 > 1:27:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

1:27:52 > 1:27:54E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk