Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and 'Britain's Best Garden'

Britain’s TV Channel 5 is running a series (8pm on Thursdays) hosted by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and called ‘I own Britain’s Best Garden’. It is a welcome contribution to debate about garden design but the point it dramatizes is the pathetic standard of TV discussion of the subject. Alan Titchmarch blazes the trail each year at Chelsea with remarks like ‘Wow – not bad is it’ and ‘This’ll set your knees wobbling – it certainly does mine’.

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is more sophisticated but the impression, perhaps correctly for its audience, is that the presenter, the critics and the designers lack substance in their chosen field. I know that many of the participants earn their living from garden design but this does not make them expert designers or expert design critics.

C’mon producers: you can do better – much, much better. Garden TV has been a massive growth area over the past 20 years. The time is right for a push into quality. Kevin McLeod conducts a more sophisticated discussion about architecture, as does Jeremy Clarkson about cars and Jamie Oliver about food.

Useful note to TV executives: Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear sells round and round the world.

8 thoughts on “Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and 'Britain's Best Garden'

  1. Tom Turner Post author

    Your point applies to design critics better than to designers. Lots of untrained people make good gardens (like Vita Sackville West and Harold Nicholson). Nor to you need a garden design training to have ‘good taste’ – maybe it doesn’t even help. But a design training and the experience of visiting a lot of gardens definitely makes a person into a better critic. Alan Titchmarsh is a complete ham when it comes to talking about design.

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  2. John

    Agred. But I think your point applies to design critics better than to designers. Lots of untrained people make good gardens (like Vita Sackville West and Harold Nicholson). Nor to you need a garden design training to have ‘good taste’ – maybe it doesn’t even help. But a design training and the experience of visiting a lot of gardens definitely makes a person into a better critic. Alan Titchmarsh is a complete ham when it comes to talking about design.

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  3. Grenville Johnson

    I agree that the programme is extremely shallow.The judges remarks are petty and sometimes unprofessional and they resort to the ridiculous voting system of holding up cards to decide the winner. We open our award winning garden that is the smallest in The Natioanl Gardens Scheme in Bristol.The main point is how have these gardens been selected for the programme? No one so far has mentioned this point in the programme, and often the owners and their gardens are humiliated by the judges. I’m surpised that the National Gardens Scheme is providing the awards in the form of the winners plaques for this dreadful programme.

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  4. Tom Turner Post author

    Thank you, Grenville, for describing additional weaknesses in Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen’s ‘I own Britain’s Best Garden’. The ‘I own’ part of the title adds a further note of boastful distastefulness to the show and, with the current hounding of bankers, invites curiosity concerning the funding of the design projects.
    Monty Don’s programme was a much nicer production: excellent photography and pleasingly naive commentary. But it left me yearning for a well-informed presenter. TV executives treat gardening programmes as ‘watched by amateurs’ and therefore best ‘made by amateurs’, like reality-TV shows, with a few would-be-clebs to spice things up.

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  5. Tom Turner Post author

    This could be the $64,000 question – if the cost of financial advice has fallen to the credit crunch! I’ll think about it, but the key could be in finding a talented presenter. Perhaps we need an Andrew Lloyd Webber type talent show. I heard this morning that he is going to write a song for the Eurovision Song Contest and use a talent show to find a singer.

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  6. Christine

    Sounds like an interesting project. Andrew Lloyd Webber is great. Are you thinking about finding a singing presenter?(Seeing is believing!)Maggie Barry is a New Zealand presenter who has an interest in both gardening and food.

    In the UK Rachel de Thame has caused quite a stir with her comments that; “Either you have an idea about how things should look as regards proportion and shape or you don’t. It is something that can be coaxed out but really it is innate.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-565907/Uproar-BBC-gardening-presenter-claims-Chelsea-Flower-Show-designers-dont-need-knowledge-plants-win.html

    Perhaps after these comments it would be difficult for her to be considered a well informed presenter?

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