You’ve seen the show, now check out what happens behind the scenes!
(Missed it? Watch it on ITVPlayer now!)
You can always tell which house is getting a makeover by ITV’s Love Your Garden – the front is packed out the front with plants, tools, vans, aggregate, paving slabs and a host of others. Here is a classic shot of what is happening when everything arrives. It’s ready to go in and start transforming the plot into something spectacular.
Here is Associate Producer Thea, the cheeky monkey, with a banana! There was a banana plant that we put into this show to give it a tropical theme. Thea grabbed some bananas from the catering van and stuck them on the plant. Everyone who saw it was amazed that the tree had fruit on it! “I can’t believe it is producing bananas!” they said. It wasn’t. Thea just put them there. And ate them afterwards.
Here’s Alan planting that massive palm in the corner. It always looks like the garden is fairly empty when you see it on TV, but as you can see here there are always loads of people around, including landscapers and the film crew. There’s even someone up on the roof of the summer house! Action is going on all the time when we’re doing these makeovers.
Next is Thea, Frances and myself. Thea finds most of the plants and features for the garden and co-ordinates them from the different suppliers, with different deliveries. It’s a mammoth task, and she does a great job.
Here we are filming the piece about water in the garden. The director Alice and cameraman are saying get your shorts on and get in the water David! They told me to walk in rather than jumping in, which is actually worse. It’s freezing cold and I had to swim down to the bottom, pop up on the surface, deliver a line and dive back down again. I managed to swallow quite a bit of water, which had a distinct taste of… er, duck poo.
Here are the hard landscapers from Frosts, Jon and Matt. These lads are hard-working guys with a real can-do attitude, and it’s been a pleasure to work with them throughout the whole series.
We do quite a bit of filming at Capel Manor Gardens – if you haven’t visited it, it is amazing. It’s like Chelsea Flower Show all year round. There are loads of mini show gardens there for people to visit. Here’s the beautiful lavender-lined path that leads up to the main house. It’s phenomenal place to go. Check it out at http://www.capelmanorgardens.co.uk/
Guy is always getting into these blogs! Here I caught him sitting down and would you believe it – he’s wearing odd socks! He does a lot of these things and always gets away with it. He’s our runner, and I had wondered why he wasn’t running very fast – but now we know! Odd socks, and probably an odd smell coming from them too!
Here are the two directors, Alice and Natalie explaining something they want me to do. I’m not sure what they are trying to indicate with their hands, but it was making me a bit nervous! While that’s going on, you can see Matt off to the side. By the look on his face, he’s obviously eyeing up somebody who’s walking in the street! Disgraceful.
Here’s our cameraman Steve giving me a filthy look for getting a big blob of cement on his camera! When he shouts ‘action!’ and I’m busy slapping down the cement, he’s got to learn to move back a bit. What else does he expect?
This is a picture of my front garden design for the show. I spent a bit of time with my team in the office putting our heads together for ideas before I went off on site. We wanted to create a nice-looking front garden – here’s the original sketch. We had to do some serious scrabbling around to find plants and features at short notice.
And here’s the final result! There’s me, with a cheesy grin, looking at our lovely green garden. I thought it was important to give each front garden a different personality, and I knew the girls would both do something flowery. I chose to do mine all with foliage, and we came up with this topiary concept.
This is our sound guy Mike. Talk about a sound expert – he looks like he’s going to do a DJ set in Ibiza! Especially with that hat. It was his favourite hat, apparently. He looks like a dude, and he controls all the sound as we record the programme.
It looks as if we’re all working back in the kitchens at Pizza Express! Three munchkins, eh? We’re supposed to wear these plastic covers on our shoes so we don’t walk mud into the house when we use the loo. I put one on my head and it made such a good hat, the girls copied it. It’s my favourite photo of the series!
This is the panicked bit at the end of the makeover, when we’re rushing to get everything together in time! We’re putting the finishing touches to the makeover. Here’s Alan moving the furniture into position.
Here is the team waiting outside while Alan shows Joan around the garden. Everybody is tired out. Right in the middle there is Shaun, one of our ace landscapers. He’s sitting down and playing Angry Birds on his phone! It was a great makeover.
[fusion_dropcap]Q[/fusion_dropcap]I want to build a sensory garden – can you give me any advice on designing and creating one for a school? It needs to be a quiet, calming place for students to relax and work.
[fusion_dropcap]A[/fusion_dropcap]Sensory gardens are a great idea. The best way to design one is to add elements for the different senses.
Scented plants are a must, and climbers are good too as they surround people with flowers and scents. Jasmine and honeysuckle are great for this.
You can also try tough herbs like lavender, thyme and rosemary. If you plant mint, keep it in containers – it runs wild if planted in the ground.
Next add in plants with texture and foliage. Anything with rich leaves works – just head to your garden centre and stand plants next to each other to check they work together. One of my favourites is lamb’s ears, which has soft fluffy leaves.
Texture and foliage plays a big part in sensory gardens
You can also try succulents and alpines in paving cracks, grasses in among wildflowers – whatever you like! I have written about great foliage plants, as well as choosing the best varieties from Chelsea Flower Show and Hampton Court.
If you have a large area, a tight budget, or even just a bed you want to fill with flowers quickly, I would recommend a wildflower mix. This will give you a great range of pretty flowers in just a few months.
Make sure you create lots of seating areas for people to enjoy the garden. This doesn’t have to be furniture – if you have raised beds or water features, make sure they have walls or edges that people can sit on. If you have the space for a lawn, it’s really the most cost-effective seating area!
Water features are very calming, and they attract wildlife, which is a good bonus. If you don’t have room for a fountain, try rain chains and bird baths.
With school gardens, students get the most out of them when they are allowed to help create the garden, from choosing plants and features to building, planting, watering and weeding. Good luck!
When I was a child, we were barely ever indoors. And I believe that gardening is really important for children. There’s no doubt that if you make it fun, kids will get involved. So here are my top ways to get them outside – all we need now is some good summer weather!
1 Start a plot
Identify part of the garden that belongs to each child. My father did this for me, my sister and brother. Let your children plant what they want to grow in their own patch. You’ll be amazed how much difference that little bit of ownership will make to them.
2 Make it fun
Encourage them towards plants that have a life outside the garden. Growing pumpkins for Halloween, for example, or an apple tree or peanuts to eat. It’s not just leaves and flowers – it’s all the other things that plants give.
3 Try something new
There are heaps of plants, fruit, veg and colourful shrubs that are a bit different from what’s in the rest of the garden. Don’t be afraid of something that might look a little odd in your design!
For younger children, sunflowers are always a winner because they grow so quickly. They are also easy and inexpensive. Get siblings really invested in it by making it a competition to see whose grows bigger! Get sunflower growing tips here.
5 Follow the feathers
Pick up a small pair of binoculars and a birdspotting book. It will encourage kids to take an interest in what’s going on outside. Birds are free pets.
6 Feed the fish
If the kids aren’t too young, add a pond – you can get by with less than two metres sqaure. Introducing frogspawn or goldfish will let them interact with living creatures – pondlife is fascinating. But make sure it’s well covered so no one falls in.
7 Grow your own
We all know kids love to eat, but it’s even more special when they’ve grown it themselves. Fruit goes down well and strawberries are a firm favourite. If you’re struggling to get kids motivated, take them to a pick-your-own farm and grab a couple of strawberry plants on the way home.
8 Start indoors
You can also grab their attention inside the house first. There are fascinating plants such as Venus flytraps, the Dracula plant, the hooded executioner and the deadly dew plant – they’re fascinating plants that eat insects and are guaranteed to be a winner on a bedroom windowsill.
Simple maths: kids plus creepy crawlies equals hours of fun! Try creating a bee or insect hotel to attract more bugs into the garden. Simply stuff straw into empty pipes or fill a plant pot with pine cones. Or check out my bee house, made from an old terracotta pot!
And don’t be squeamish – insects attract birds and protect the garden. A ladybird eats 5,000 greenfly in its lifetime, so everyone wins!
10 Make them work
If you can’t drum up any enthusiasm, make the kids earn their pocket money in the garden. It gives them an incentive to cut the lawn, dig weeds and water plants when it’s hot. It worked on me when I was young!
