Ochran Blog

Friday, December 30, 2005

Behind the Scenes Expose - Gardener of the Year 2005

As promised here are some more detailed pictures of the 'show' garden. According to my camera's highly accurate built in clock the six pictures below were all taken between 11:57 and 12:01 on the last day. So how come they showed Elaine hurriedly filling pots to the soundtrack of 'look for the hero inside' after Monty announced that everyone could have an extra hour? Well mainly because they edited in film from 10:00 that morning. The truth was that our garden was completed at 11:30 and they had to ask us to go back in and look busy for the extra hour announcement. But the camera never lies so I must be mistaken. There is also a closeup of our water feature below that I was dissapointed they never really gave more than a passing glance on camera.

This next batch were taken after the judging, about 4:30pm.
The first picture shows Jeannette who I personally felt was treated unfairly by the finished program.
The second picture is Geoff's garden and although I thought Geoff was never going to win his presence added imensely to the whole experience and we probably spent more of our free time with him and his helper Ben than any of the other contestants.
Picture 3 is of Dean and Mandy our 'clients' who seemed to be quite geniunely pleased with their finished garden. When we returned to the site about 9:00pm to pick up our van for the drive home they were still sat outside enjoying the garden with friends.
Pictures 4 and 5, I have included, at Elaines request, to try and dispell the myth that our garden was mostly gravel!
Picture 6 is of Shirley's garden. I think she was lucky in that the householders taste was closer to her own than any of the other contestants. Shirley distingished herself by persuading the BBC driver to find an off-licence on the journey between the set and the hotel, thereby saving me a great deal of money.

Comments:

I thought you should have won. You were in my opinion the better garden. Looking at the beeb msg board pages, you'd finished on time and,I dunno, it looked the best. I got a bit suspicious when they wouldn't (and still haven't as far as I know) published the scores as they went along. Very dodgy that. Though I think you said that there were two recounts. They either knew the winner or not. The girl that won, should not have. She was missing for half a day, and didn't finish on time and had a problem with her soil.I'd like to see it in a year's time to see if it could sustain what she planted.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:13 PM

Your garden would have grown to be quite good but lacked the "wow" factor - planting thin and the back wall of the garage was still very visible even though the climber frame stated your intent. I personally detest unpainted reinforcing mesh used as anything but its prime purpose but will allow you the design as some folk don't seem to mind.

One thing I won't forgive you for is the turf - some of it is the wrong way around - in a show garden on telly!

As for points scoring - I always reckon that judges should make up
sheets to explain themselves separately ( no conferring ) then the final totting up should be done in public - otherwise you all end up with a "skaters" score.

# posted by

1stClassAlan : 12:10 AM

Thank you for visiting our site.
I assume you liked Geoffs garden best, that certainly had the most "Wow" factor.
Planting was thin, but virginia creeper will cover within a year, so would swamp anything big we had planted, also budget restrictions. Having looked at http://www.rolawn.co.uk/layTurf.asp
I feel the turf was laid correctly, having not laid it before (I tend to use seed). The BBC supplied the turf which was very thin, with bits missing, easily broken and so difficult to use as we were only allowed our allocated rolls, at least we got ours down by day 2, and heavily watered.
Perhaps if you care to look at the turf on the winning garden (featured in Feb's GW Mag), you might agree even with lots of the green turned up in photoshop, it leaves a lot to be desired and also seems to be the wrong way round. In fact their grass resembled the floor of the elephant enclosure at Bristol Zoo, minus the manure of course, as there was no sign of any organic matter in that garden.
P.S It wasn't a show garden, and within a week all the grass would have been facing towards the sun as nature intended.

# posted by

Elaine : 7:41 PM