Love Your Garden Episode 5: Eastleigh – Behind The Scenes

This was a particularly interesting makeover, and I loved the patio with the whole cruise-liner effect. It has to be one of my favourite Love Your Gardens.

It was created for an amazing lady, and the reaction of her and her husband when they saw it was truly moving .

The sun really baked down and we all got pretty sunburnt on this shoot.

Here’s Katie and Frances trying to get their heads around the table that we do our ‘plan chat’ on for each episode. This same table has actually been travelling around with us for about five years! You would have thought the girls would have figured it out by now…

We have to give it a bit of extra height, so as you can see the bricks ready on the floor. All part of the smoke and mirrors and magic of television.

Some of the camera crew here. That’s Simon in the foreground messing about on his phone, and Frances in the background making plans. I’ve just popped my wheelbarrow down to take a shot for you guys.

I love these – these are the funnels of the ‘cruise ship’ being painted up. The guys did a sterling job makingthese, I think the funnels look amazing. I think they really worked with the garden and the whole feel of it.

Here I’m just about to start drilling and making the bollards. You can see Rob our camera man in the foreground ready to go, Jules our director, and Lloyd aka storm-bringer. Having said that, this is the first shoot he’s been on (and believe me, he’s been on loads) where the sun came out and shone all the time! He now wants his name changed to ‘sun-bringer’…think we need a few more days of sun before that I’m afraid Lloyd!

This is Frances and Rebecca working on putting rope around the tyres to contribute to the cruise-liner effect we were going for. I love these, the whole rope feeling for the garden is great, and I think more gardens should feature rope. It’s such a flexible material in its uses and offers a great nautical effect and these tyres really helped bring the garden together.

This is Katie sanding down her little pirate ship. I though the ship was the business, maybe I should get my own….

The guys here giving getting the filter through the ground for the water feature. I was supposed to be holding the top bit there but I jumped back to take a photo just for you guys! Matt is getting right in there on the floor…

Here’s a shot of Katie and the lads moving some of the large palms in position. They really added a difference to the garden, they give a bit of a ‘holiday’ feel. This is just one of two palms suitable for the garden. This is a trachycarpus palm, and the other suitable for the garden is a cordyline.

Here we have Amy, Darren and Jackie who help with make up, director/producer and coordination. They do a great job.

Here’s Tam, sneaking in a crafty cookie whilst he’s on the phone. Just as well you didn’t get caught in the act there Tam!

Amy made sure we had sun cream on throughout the day. Frances has that look on her face because she told me to put some more on, but did I listen?!

Tam fresh from his cookie looking after the other side of a garden makeover, look at all the tools required!

This is a cross shoot here, Alan in the background being filmed talking about grasses but also in the foreground, Darren was filming Katie with the pirate ship. You’ve really got to watch where you walk in this sort of situation, because it’s very easy to stumble into shot!

Matt, Simon and Scott aren’t line dancing in this photo. They’re enjoying the shade from the pirate ship sail and testing out the decking.

Frances in her outdoor garden building giving me a pose with glass balls in her hand and a spade on the wall… I’m sure it’s going to become something great.

Alan took on the duty of watering and making sure everything is well hydrated. It was important this was done regularly because of how warm the weather was.

This is pretty much everyone trying to prevent the hose from being squashed! Ah.. the bits you don’t see.

A shot of the girls with their lovely tanned faces. When we started this series we didn’t have much colour to us, but we were so fortunate with the weather, we’ve managed to get a little bronzed!

Here’s a shot of our two directors: Natalie and Jules. They have a phenomenally hard job of trying to get everything the editors and cameras need filmed, as well as trying to get the presenters in the right place and position. A task that’s not easy!

Here is Simon, our camera man, he was the inspiration for our pirate. I think Simon would do better on the pirate ship, and the pirate could potentially do better with the camera…

This is the bow of the ship. I think it’s amazing with the captain’s table. What a garden with a great deal of personality this garden has!

This is my selfie with Darren… and Alan calling to us in the background “aren’t you guys supposed to be working!?” Err, oops!

Here we have the Frosts guys at the end of the shoot, making sure everything is finished and everything cleared.

Another selfie here of me and Katie while everyone else is waiting for the family to come back.

This is a shot of my project, which was the fence posts made into little boating-style bollards to give the border some nautical effects.

I loved our water feature with the propeller and the anchor – I think it brings an extra bit of character to the garden.

And finally we have Lloyd and Rob admiring our work. Even what they’re wearing looks like cruise clothing, I’m not sure if that was planned or not…

Marvelous shoot, fantastic garden, beautiful weather and I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode and the behind the scenes photos!