Hi Jimmy, Being of a certain age myself I agree with you that I was always taught that a fine tilth for carrots was necessary, but perhaps we all did that extra work for nothing!
As for the garden, it was not my taste either and the straight path seemed to be completely against what she said she was aiming for - a garden of mystery and romance, and the end of the path near the summer house seemed to end almost hard against the branch of a tree, though that might have been the camera fore-shortening the area.
Gardener's World seems to have diverged from gardening a bit, OK perhaps some people don't know that Pelagoniums can be cut back after they are straggly and the bits about most influential plants over the 50 years are interesting, but surely influential means just that, not someone's preference.
Also I think having yet another weather forecast during the programme wastes time as it can only be very vague to cover the whole country and if we need it we would all check local weather surely?
Enough of that, I did enjoy seeing that the bit where his box balls used to be had some very uneven brick paths - made my efforts seem worthwhile!

No, its not just you - I stopped watching Gardeners World a couple of years ago, Monty drives me bonkers. I'd watched him construct a wigwam of wonky branches he'd cut from a tree elsewhere for the Clematis to climb up (the branches were way too thick for any clematis to be able to climb up, and particularly not a hybrid clematis, and he never mentioned that) and then he planted a rose in a hole he'd dug where you could see at least 30 thick bindweed roots without ever mentioning the bindweed. I decided my blood pressure couldn't take it and stopped watching him - but there was some bloke on there last week that I caught a few minutes of who was preparing a border in a large garden, not sure who he was, but he was more to my taste from a gardening point of view. He was dealing with one border over run with bindweed and one that wasn't, anyone know who he was?

Don't know his name Bamboo, but he has been on several times. A new 'regular'? I find his contributions interesting but I often miss Gardeners' World.

Hi Bamboo. I think his name is Adam Frost, a garden designer who's designed some of the gardens at the Chelsea garden show. He's moved house within the last year or so and every now and then the programme shows how he's getting on developing this new garden.

Ah, thanks very much - be nice if he took over Gardener's World, I might start watching it more regularly again. Poor old Monty, nice bloke, but he misses lots of opportunities to pass on information.

Jimmy, I think Monty, and his followers, are going to have some very short, stubby, bifurcated carrots. Farmers wouldn't go to the lengths the do to get such fine tilth if it wasn't necessary.

No its not just you and its not an age thing either. its the fact that gardening seems to be implied as an 'instant' garden. the ground needs proper prep if you are to be successful. sorry preaching to the converted :o)

Hi, I'm with Bamboo on this, I've made a point of not watching gardenersworldfor several years now, I thought the idea of the programme was to pass on advice and information to mostly amateur gardeners, not showing people what they could do with a few thousand pounds, and it was so repetitive, I just gave up on it, Derek.

I also stopped watching when Monty Don took over presenting. I prefer Beechgrove, much better presenters ( in my opinion true gardeners ) and they give out good tips and advice.

I find it absolutely incredible that Gardeners World is shown on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and yet Beechgrove is shown once in a very early Sunday morning slot. Surely they could show each programme twice instead of one once and the other three times.

I did not see it but I know what you all mean, some of the things I have seen over the years are so misleading and not good for people new to gardening, what really irritates me is when you watch these show gardens at Chelsea etc and you see all these modern structures with minimal planting or planting schemes which once over do nothing for the gardn in the winter months, for me a garden should be all about the plants and planted out with interest in every season.

Ah, Chelsea, yes, well... lovely to visit, maybe get the odd idea here and there, but not useful to copy a whole garden. I remember a friend of mine enthusing about a particular garden at length then being totally disbelieving and eventually disappointed when I told her what it would look like 2 or 3 months later... most of the gardens are just the equivalent of a photo or snapshot, a beautiful moment in time.

I didn't rate that garden either, couldn't see what on earth GW saw in it apart from artificial plants. I prefer Beechgrove too as they are more down to earth. Sorry!