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BBC filming Harrogate in Bloom - a personal view by Mary Bond
Harrogate in Bloom was delighted to be asked to take part in a three part series fronted by gardening presenter Sarah Raven. The series is provisionally entitled River of Flowers and is scheduled to be broadcast in Autumn 2011.
1 April 2010:
Sarah, in conjunction with Dr Jeff Ollerton, senior lecturer in ecology at the University of Northampton, paid their first visit to the town. They outlined the aims of the programme, which is to encourage biodiversity in urban areas by introducing more nectar-rich species of plants. They were particularly keen to follow an in Bloom group to show that simply by making minor changes in the planting plans, eg replacing double begonias (nectar poor) with single dahlias (nectar rich), our famous floral beds would lose nothing in terms of longevity of flowering period or impact.
The Hotel du Vin provided an excellent venue for the initial filming as it overlooks some of the West Park flower beds. Sarah and Jeff's presentation was followed by a lively discussion and then filming continued with a walkabout around part of the Floral Trail.
Britain in Bloom judging day: 10 August 2010:
Yes, the BBC crew were back with Tricia in charge this time.
Today was the day for the visit of our two Champion of Champions judges, and our first call was at 8.30am when they wanted to film us doing a final tidy up around the West Park biodiversity beds, which happen to be the first stop off point of the tour. Geoff, Chris and Tony were busy weeding and brushing and I spotted a discarded Waitrose container in the corner. Just some discarded melon and grapes - how terribly civilised our litter louts are, and what a relief that it wasn't a portion of last night's unwanted curry!
The judges arrived around noon after a short flight from Jersey and we enjoyed lunch in West Park Church. After the presentation (don't ask!) and a photo call (see home page) we were off and - surprisingly - the judges agreed to be wired for sound.
The tour seemed to be over in a flash, without any major headaches; apparently the crew were caught off guard when we arrived at the war memorial fifteen minutes early - but to be honest, they were so discreet, we barely noticed they were there. They've clearly done this fly-on-the-wall stuff before!.
Sarah interviewed the judges at the end of the tour and then had a chat with Patrick and me; she came up with some interesting suggestions for future projects and we'll certainly be considering those once the dust settles a bit. Thanks for being so patient, guys, we really appreciated you not adding to our stress levels!
6 July 2010
We moved the Harrogate in Bloom monthly meeting to the Old Swan Hotel to give us extra space to accommodate the crew, who were filming the meeting. On then to my house where we talked about my month of experimentation, measuring the sugar content of several species of plants within my garden, particularly those which have been attractive to bees and hoverflies. My quick make-over to make it look presentable was all in vain. Andy and his team immediately ignored the neat and tidy bits and homed in on the profusion of 'wild flowers' growing in our lawn (left uncut due to the current lack of rain). C'est la vie!
29 June 2010
As the originator of the question about bee-friendly logos on plants, I was invited to the National Plant Show at Stoneleigh Park, run by the Horticultural Trades Association. Sarah and Jeff were taking part in a seminar and were joined on the panel by horticultural
marketing consultant Doug Stewart, and Helen Bostock
from RHS Wisley. The audience consisted of suppliers (seeds, labels, plants etc) as well as buyers from garden centres, so it was an ideal opportunity for Sarah to gauge the reaction of the trade to her ideas. I'm pleased to say they seemed very receptive to the new initiatives proposed.
Last stop of the day was at the council nurseries where Jeff showed me how to test for nectar on some of the plants bought earlier. At first I tried to select the ones I thought would be good - simple flowers, nice open centre - but it's not as easy as that! I've never really looked at flower structure in that much detail before and was surprised to find that salvia, which has flowers like a tiny orchid when you look closely, and look quite closed and complex, were in fact nectar rich (22% sugar content). The single-flowered dahlia had a high reading (35%) whereas Jeff couldn't find any nectar at all in the the double dahlia. The busy lizzie has a long nectar-filled spur behind the flower, so is only good for insects with a long tongue and the begonias didn't have any nectar at all, just male and female flowers on the same plant. Confused?. You bet I was; especially now they've lent me a couple of refractometers, the measuring devices, so that I can test an assortment of flowers in Harrogate over the summer. The equipment is easy to use - I'm just not sure I'm going to know where and indeed, if, the flowers I choose are hiding any nectar. Makes you realise the insects are cleverer than we think!
More about nectar testing on Mary's blog>>
10 June 2010
The BBC crew are back and first job was to film the planting of the diversity beds on West Park Stray, in front of the United Reformed Church. Sarah and Jeff's recommendations of nectar-rich plants have been incorporated and to be honest, at this stage, you can't tell the difference between this and the more conventionally planted beds...and that, I suppose, is Sarah's point. However, it's early days so lets see if it's still looking good on judging day in August.
A question at the April meeting raised the issue of how customers could select nectar-rich plants at the garden centre without having done considerable research beforehand. Dr Jeff and I set off for Daleside Nurseries to see what was on offer. Daleside has a huge choice of plants and is very well laid out with clear labelling, but like all the other garden centres I went round, there was nothing there to help me decide. Yes, I could have asked the staff, but that's not too convenient if it's busy and if I was just a casual weekend gardener looking to pick up a few plants, there was nothing on the labels to influence my choice towards nectar-rich or wildlife friendly species.
Next stop (after a celeb-spotting lunch in the BBC 'village'...Alan Titchmarsh, Rachel de Thame, Carol Klein) we were taken to one of the small urban show gardens, designed by Holly Cheese of Bee Friendly Plants. A very different design - more show garden than a practical design, but the more we looked the more Caroline and I liked it. Patrick, on the other hand, was less impressed. Whereas he thought the red-clover grassy patch had potential, I thought it looked a mess; where we liked the tightly clipped hedging surrounding hexagonal cells of single-species planting and could see that down Montpellier Hill, he thought it would look out of place. But hey-ho, that's the joy of gardening; one man's weed patch is another's wildlife habitat so we amicably agreed to disagree.
Last port of call was the Best In Show garden and I'm sure the designer, Andy Sturgeon, was wondering who on earth these three strangers were wandering about his masterpiece, passing comments. I don't think any of us would have said that was our favourite, but I guess that's why we're not judges!
We were so impressed by Paul's choice of plants that Patrick has invited him to come to Harrogate to help in the planning of some of the flower beds. Whether the principles of show garden planting can be applied to a town centre bedding scheme and still look good over a long flowering period remain to be seen - but we'll never know unless we try.
We were then privileged - and I do mean privileged - to be allowed into Laurence Pountney Hill's garden for the main sponsors, M&G Investments. It was an absolute delight and the epitomy of an English country garden. Rose-covered pergolas, a green oak summerhouse, lavender, foxgloves...it had it all and was a worthy winner (in our eyes!) of a coveted gold medal.
25 May 2010:
The purpose of our visit was to look at and discuss a couple of the show gardens which embraced the biodiversity theme. First stop was the Bradstone Biodiversity Garden, where we were given a guided tour by the designer, Paul Hervey-Brookes. He won the Bradstone-sponsored Chris Beardshaw scholarship in 2009, the main prize being an opportunity to stage a show garden at Chelsea. It's quite surreal being allowed inside one of the gardens with the crowds looking at you being filmed - no doubt there were a few "Don't recognise them" comments - but to be honest you soon forget all about the camera and microphone and concentrate on the matter in hand.
Paul's garden was quite compact with a sunken seating area at one end, but he had adopted an interesting multi-layered approach to the biodiversity issue. He used a lot of sustainable planting, which gave a lovely mixed cottage garden effect, but we were all struck by his excellent use of colour. Lots of purples, blues and soft shades of pinks with beautiful yellow irises adding contrast. The other things we liked were the simple structures he had incorporated as wildlife habitats - a stack of logs sandwiched between a pair of stone blocks (like bookends) - which gave a little bit more formality to an otherwise free-flowing garden design.
The day ended with a trip up to the council nurseries on Harlow Hill where they could see the massive scale of the operation - the main glasshouse holds some 80000 bedding plants and unlike many local authorities, Harrogate propagates much of its own stock.
Then we get the call - would we like to go and film at the Chelsea Flower Show? Are you kidding? Where's the train timetable?
