Gardeners' Question Time

Helen Yemm's report - Saturday Telegraph 2 Feb

The week beforehand the village was all of a-twitter. Tickets were like gold dust. Finally, after a 20-year wait, BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time came to Wadhurst, East Sussex.

On the night of the recording session, the great and the good of the Garden Society, and many more of us besides, assembled promptly in the Commemoration Hall (which had been lavishly decorated with the village's finest flowers and produce).

There were the customary trailing wires, serious young women with clipboards and headsets, glaring lights and, above all, a pervading sense of expectancy and bonhomie that is a quintessential part of a once-in-a-lifetime English village event such as this.

So, did Gardeners' Question Time live up to expectations? Did the village have its gardening questions answered and conundrums dealt with? We certainly worked hard at it: the Chosen Few shyly read out their questions; the rest of us applauded on cue during a recording session that lasted a buttock-numbing two and a half hours or more.

Yes, I suppose we did have our questions answered, if you take into account that questions about the nation's most notorious bugbears - slugs, snails and vine weevils - are just too humdrum to merit the panel's attention, and those about planting by the phases of the moon just too off-the-wall.

Cutting-edge horticulture this possibly wasn't - but, as a piece of light, slightly waffly, almost visual radio entertainment for people who love to garden, it more or less hit the spot.

Furthermore the panel showed absolutely no signs of experiencing déjà vu or boredom and seemed genuinely to engage with us. In the blasé, makeover-weary, celebrity-conscious 21st century, this familiar, comfortable old chestnut manages to gently inform, amuse and reassure and is still understandably revered after 60 years.

It makes you wonder who dreamt up Radio 4's latest gardening offering, The Garden Quiz - a dull affair that pits assorted clever-clogs against each other in round after round of horticultural boffinry. And how long it will last, I wonder?

Two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, several weeks later: nothing was stirring in Wadhurst as residents huddled around their crystal sets (OK, I exaggerate a little) to find out who had been left in and who had been edited out.

In fact, a surprising amount of the stuff I recall survived intact - complete with mirth and applause. The weirdly orchestrated repeats had been seamlessly woven in and gaps magically filled with up-to-date weather reports to make it sound "live".

The most memorable pearl of wisdom? He Who Mulch-Mows should get out there a tad more often if he doesn't want his lawn to acquire that tell-tale "wet corn circle" look.

But it was all good, if long-winded, stuff. Gratifyingly, the hard-working ladies from the wool shop, the leading lights of the Garden Society who had brought the whole event to fruition and even baked a splendid anniversary cake that we all enjoyed with the panel after the show, had a question about their overbearing magnolia tree answered ("prune it" was the verdict) and thus enjoyed their deserved, long-awaited few minutes in the sun.