Bark and Christmas lights

Fantastic photo.
I've had a feeling all along that with so much filming, it would be your own special show. :o)
Well done on the hard work.
You manage to keep it fun, which is so important.
Now you can go and dry out your Santa hats. :o)

Great can't wait to see it on tele, can't believe i know someone who does does things in their garden for gardeners world, i have their mag every month. well done to you.Like TT said go get your santa hat dry.

How exciting!!!

Wow! A Whole Year of your Wonderful/Beatiful Garden On Gardeners World :)

Can't wait for this program. Looking forward to it.

It's 8.30pm and we've just come indoor after moving half the heap of bark! Note the car parked across the driveway - in case anyone takes a shine to our bark!!!

To get the impact of the transition through the seasons they want to keep our garden in one showing. It looks as though there will be a half hour of us - probably split into four sessions throughout the total one hour programme. Having had a very Christmassy filming yesterday, it seems sensible to finish on that note - so it would lend itself to a Christmas Special.

They started filming in May, which is quite late spring to us. They did say that they could come back in March to film the daffodils (and when there was no sign of the snowdrops we are currently planting - which would confuse people) and they could juggle the tapes so that it looked like that was their first session.

Each day of filming is 4 minutes of broadcast. Each day of filming is also a whole day of editing! They will probably need to come back, anyway, to get us say things again, or fill in information or bits of filming.

It's a bit frustrating having to wait a whole year for it to be televised - we thought we could relax in a year's time when we will both be retiring. They say it will open the floodgates for visitors and magazines - so we know what we will be doing in our retirement!

If the TV people are going to juggle the order of filming, are you feeling obliged to 'look the same' for a year, e.g. not move too much around in the garden, and sort of keep the same hairstyles ? Lol.

We will have to watch those sorts of things. Tony realised that he had put on a fleece during filming yesterday. To ensure continuity, he had to go through the motions of picking up his fleece from the bench - but it took several retakes before it was acceptable!

By the way - the cameraman has now bought a head torch!!!

Oh, no ! Not another head torch !
I should definitely have asked for commission.
Yes, if Tony wanted to grow a beard, or shave off a beard, he would have to ask permission of the TV continuity department ! :o)

Standby!!!---- The publicity is still ongoing after two years of our garden being featured on the programme and in the magazine.On the night it was televised we had over 150 phone calls, and we had to phone the n.g.s officers to ask for help with crowd control. The numbers of visitors was unbelievable!

The publicity still hasn't stopped, and we turned down another opportunity this year to appear in a garden design programme, but we took a long holiday that clashed with the filming schedule. They would like us to participate in 2009, so we will have to see what develops.

We are sure you will have lots of offers to have the garden featured in magazines and the media.

Well done and all best wishes.
Grenville and Alan

It's started already!

We received an email today from the website: "Great British Gardens" (Grenville and Alan' garden are featured on the site, and Muddywellies' Winsford Walled Gardens.)

The email read "We are aware of your lovely garden and it is about time we put it on our website. Perhaps you could complete the online form at ....

How exciting, well done to you both, looking forward to seeing the program, next time we visit the Midlands we will come and look at you.

Our open day dates and instructions for getting here are on our website: www.fourseasonsgarden.co.uk We would love to see people on our open days or at other times if you're in the area - and are prepared to take us as you find us!

Looking forward to seeing the program.

How Exciting FS, im sitting here grinning from ear to ear reading this, And of course you deserve all this attention, your garden is Amazing....

Thanks for all your kind comments.

People say of the pair of us "You're so committed.... or need committing!" We are both as mad as each other - which helps! Gardening is a great hobby - it's so absorbing and creative. When each of a pair is just as interested, it makes for a great, shared past-time.

As we were planting clumps of snowdrops, in front of the camera, Tony was muttering that "This is women's work, I normally do all the heavy work!" The cameraman gave me a look as though to say "Are you going to let him get away with that?" - having just seen me lifting dustbins of heavy bark and moving large pots of plants. You might hear my exclamation of "Huh!" in the back ground. I went on to explain that Tony was good at deadheading flowers and I often wielded a pick axe - it depended what was needed.