The Great Chelsea Challange.

With Chelsea just around the corner the BBC have come up with a new series to wet your appetite before the main event.

The Great Chelsea Challenge 2015 where six amature garden designers go head to head to win the prize of getting to build a garden at Chelsea flower show.

Starting on Monday 11th May at 8pm on BBC 2 this new 4 part series where the amateurs are mentored by Jo Swift as they build there show gardens over the four days. In several styles including cottage gardens, formal gardens and conceptual gardens on a very tight budget.  The finished gardens will be judges by RHS Judge James Alexander Sinclair and a Gold medal winning garden designer Ann-Marie Powell. With the winner winning the ultimate gardening prize a chance to build a garden at Chelsea Flower show The Great Chelsea Challenge was filmed at several locations RHS Garden Harlow Carr, Sudeley Castle, Painswick Gardens and RHS Garden Wisley. The contestants taking part where selected after several hundred keen amateurs applied to take part they are Gillian Potts, Jo Manfredi-Hamer, Paul Harris, Rob Dawson, Sean Murray and Steph Humes.

It will be interesting to see who is crowned the winner and what there garden will be and look like at Chelsea 2015.



Days out - Bridgemere garden centre

I have not been to Bridgemere garden centre for many years Europe's largest garden centre so when on my way home from my parents. I saw a sign for Bridgemere so I decided to take a detour luckily the girls had not noticed that I had gone on a detour otherwise there would have been a few moans about gong to another garden centre.


Now it is pretty much a normal garden centre café, books, plants etc. but what makes Bridgemere different apart from the sheer size of the place is there show garden. The garden covers six acres and you could easily spend several hours just wandering around the show garden. The garden was originally built for the Gardening program Gardeners Diary which I believe was aired in the 1980's. I even found an old episode on You Tube proper old school gardening program teaching how to grow plants.

 If I remember rightly there used to be a booth at the entrance to the show gardens when you had to pay a small fee to get into the garden. Now it is free to get in there is not all the fruit and veg that there was during the TV years but there is defiantly lots to see.

 Although the fruit and veg are no longer there which is a shame the garden was full of glorious spring colour. A couple of the beds where empty waiting to be planted up with this coming summer bedding.

 The garden is also full of lovely clipped box and yew hedging which added lots of colour and shape to the borders.

 One great part of the garden is the fake ruined castle tower which if it was not for being able to see the brick work inside you think it was a real ruin.

 The tower sits well with in the garden especially down below where you get to gaze across all the summer flowers up to the tower.

 The garden is well maintained in fact there was hardly a weed to be seen it will defiantly be worth another trip back in the summer to see how it develops through the season.

Full details can be found on Wyevale's website

http://www.wyevalegardencentres.co.uk/garden-centres/bridgemere/Bridgemere/2

Open 9am - 6pm seven days a week

Show me your garden

I watched Sky 1's first episode of Show Me Your Garden where three couples judge each others gardens in a style similar to come dine with me. Each couple can award up to 50 points and the couple who get the most points at the end of the show wins £500 and the golden trowel.

 

But im just not sure if I like it it's not the gardens they all look great gardens well maintained and the owners put a lot of time, passion and money into them. The couples themselves are great very lovely people and they certainty know there gardens Malkanthie sedums in pots is a great idea that I may use myself especially as they are fairly maintenance free. But it's just the way the show has been put together I just felt it didn't work as a gardening program. The format works quite well as a cookery program but dose not lend it's self to gardening as well as it dose cookery. I nearly nodded off half way through watching people walk round a garden is a bit like watching paint dry not a lot of fun. I did have high hopes for this as a program it sounded a great idea unfortunately it just did not work. I will watch the next episode just to see if it dose improve but I am not holding out much hope.

The next episode is on Friday 9th Jan if my review has not put you off watching did any one else watch it what did you think.