Great British Garden Revival Episode Rating Graph

Cut Flowers – Rachel De Thame In her revival, Rachel de Thame investigates the decline of Britain’s cut-flower industry. On her campaign she visits New Covent Garden and discovers that 90 per cent of our cut flowers are imported. She also meets a man in Cumbria who has dedicated his life to growing sweet peas. Cut flowers are big business and £120 million a year is forked out on wedding flowers. This is something close to Rachel’s heart, as she recently arranged the flowers for her daughter’s wedding and showcased the flowers she is passionate about bringing back into all our homes. Trees – Joe Swift Today only 2 per cent of Britain is covered in ancient woodland and, in our gardens, we’ve fallen out of love with trees, which is why they are the focus of Joe Swift’s revival. He loves them and as a garden designer, trees are the first things he considers when laying out a garden.

Rock Gardens – Carol Klein Carol Klein shares her infectious passion for a style of gardening that is in much need of a revival. Rock gardens were at the pinnacle of Victorian garden fashion. Carol opens up the horticultural display cabinet to the finest remaining examples across the country. Herb Gardens – Toby Buckland Toby Buckland loves plants that you can grow and actually use. Throughout history, herbs have been used in medicine, to stimulate the senses and, of course, as a flavouring in food - but he thinks there’s a danger that our knowledge and understanding of these plants is being lost. Tucked away on the banks of the Thames, The Chelsea Physic Garden is the base for Toby’s Herb Garden Revival.

Glasshouses – Diarmuid Gavin In our own homes we’ve lost sight of the potential for growing under glass. In this episode, Chelsea gold-medal-winning designer Diarmuid Gavin wants us to use glasshouses to restore a sense of adventure, flair and excitement to our gardens. The base for his revival is the Great Glasshouse of the National Botanic Garden of Wales in Carmarthenshire. Shrubs – Matt James Matt James believes that shrubs deliver by the bucket load. Fantastic for privacy and screening, backdrops, focal points, fragrance, flower and foliage, they have been overlooked and ignored for too long but that is about to change. Matt thinks they can give a garden so much and in his revival he wants people to rediscover and appreciate the importance of this amazing group of plants.

Ponds – Charlie Dimmock Ever since she was a young girl, Charlie Dimmock has been fascinated by water and, in her revival, wants us all to celebrate water and wildlife in our gardens. Pollution, redevelopment and demand for water have resulted in the loss of half a million natural ponds over the last century, and Charlie believes now is the time for us all to take the plunge and do something about it. Stumperies – Chris Beardshaw In his revival, Chris Beardshaw wants to return a Victorian curiosity – the stumpery - to our back gardens. Similar to rock gardens but created from upturned stumps, logs, roots and pieces of bark, they were created to display the spoils of intrepid Victorian plant hunters.

Herbaceous Borders – Chris Beardshaw The herbaceous border is a truly iconic British garden feature. The number of perennial plants required, the intricacies of the designs, space required and extensive maintenance, all contributed to the herbaceous border falling out of favour with gardeners in recent years. Chris Beardshaw believes that this trend can be reversed and that these incredible displays of floral fireworks should return to our gardens once more. Kitchen Gardens – Alys Fowler Grow your own has been in full swing for the last few years but Alys Fowler wants to revive the original concept of the kitchen garden, not just the allotment or veg patch at the bottom of the garden. She thinks the garden should be a place of great ornamental beauty that provides us with food all year round.