Veddw Garden on Television with Alan Titchmarsh.

“A quirky garden created by self-confessed ‘Bad Tempered Gardener’ Anne Wareham. The hedges alone are worth a visit and there is much to learn about the use of plants in this Welsh garden. Quirky, fun, inspiring.”  Alan Titchmarsh

What did we talk about? My godfather, who taught Alan maths at school.

Initially, it was very flattering to have our garden chosen as an inspiration for a television makeover programme.

It was only in retrospect, when the real reason behind the choice emerged, that I came to understand that should actually read very flattening.

To be clear from the start, we weren’t chosen from the entire country. Our unusually named garden, Veddw, was simply a manageable distance from the garden selected for a makeover. Which fitted in well with Alan Titchmarsh, whose every minute is valuable, and therefore mustn’t be spent in travelling any farther than is absolutely necessary.

So that was us – the nearest g̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ possible garden.

Having decided that we were to be the “inspiration” behind the makeover, the programme makers were confronted with a key question: what on earth was there about Veddw that might inspire anyone? This problem was compounded by the fact that the garden due to be made-over was a small town plot. It needed wheelchair access and a play area for six children. Veddw comprises four acres of childless, wheelchairless country garden. Theirs is flat, ours has hills.

Curvy hedges at Veddw Garden

 

The director wanted three sources of inspiration. The producer took this on board with great verve and imagination, but was badly beaten down by our scepticism and the changing demands of her colleagues. We began to wonder – would she survive the process?

Somehow, it was decided that our distinctive and inescapable curving hedges would form the first inspiration.

Do the owners of the other, yet-to-be-made-over garden, fancy that? This is where a little gentle manipulation came in. You like flowing, eh? You shall have, er, curves. A box ticked, for now.

Sensory was the next thing that the makeover garden owner wanted – how were we going to inspire that? Since it was early spring, we went out and examined our unsensual, wet garden. It was neither the season nor the weather for scent, so the sensual activity which was suggested was stroking. Stroking at Veddw is liable to lead to the discovery of a concealed nettle.

Some of the television crew, who did eventually arrive after all this.

I confessed that perhaps we weren’t really the inspirational garden they had been hoping for – although my suggestion of cacti as sensory plants was cruel, I admit. Our resourceful and valiant (if a little desperate by now) producer emailed me frantically, in thinking-aloud mode: “OK, let’s be objective here. If somebody in the know came to your garden, would they say there were sensory elements in it?”

Answer: Full of sensual curves which create a light and dark sensory experience. As for sound, well, there are the water features, and the rustling beech leaves (although there won’t be any, at this time of year).

“Anything else? Colour??” came the plaintive reply, along with further questions:

“Leaf texture – when you say the hostas will be half-out, could a camera make it look as if there are a lot out in a small section?

“Scent – are your nectaroscordum scented? If so, are they en masse?

“Touch – moss stones? What about the grasses? Where are they in the garden?

“Can we have a quick chat? Yours in hope…

“PS Do you have curved paths, as I don’t remember seeing them?”

The wonderful deep moss, which smothers our stone walls and random rocks, nurtured by the incessant rain, passed muster as sufficiently sensuous.

These duly were ticked off and subsequently drooled over on the programme. But our two acres of intensively planted garden was not coming up trumps.

The moss was truly loved

“Do we have any lavender?” we were asked. No, we’ve banished it, as it looks odd with our lush planting on the Welsh border. One more sensory plant? Anything scented and in flower? The producer tried hard. We tried hard – what about thyme, in place of lavender? A bit on the small side, came the slightly sniffy response. Lilac is scented and in flower – they end up a bit big, though, for a small town garden. The nectaroscordum smell very powerful – a sort of onion/garlic mix. Not quite what I would describe as sensuous. Oh, and our curves are definitely vertical and are formed by a hedge, not curved paths.

To compensate for our inadequacies, a generous van-load of herbs and grasses suddenly arrived for incorporation into our garden, in order to offer the required scent and stroke. I decorated the terrace with herbs and grasses, with some satisfaction at this unexpected bonus. (You don’t get paid, you know)

When, later, Alan Titchmarsh picked up a pot of rosemary from where I had placed it and plonked it unbecomingly in a chimney pot, I sighed and reassured myself that no one would notice, or think I could possibly have been responsible. The generous line of Stipa pennata looked superb, though — everyone would credit me with that wonderful touch, wouldn’t they? And, it has to be said, people love stroking them. Things were looking up.

The next – and, fortunately, the final – aspect we were to inspire was “outdoor eating”.

Did we have a barbecue? Or were we… ahem… planning to get one, perhaps, soon, like, um, now? Well, it not being exactly a barbecue summer, no, not really, we replied. We do have a fire pit – will that do? It seemed not.

At this point, we suddenly started hearing less about the vital three inspirational elements. Fudging it became the order of the day. Curvy hedges were still in, and so had to be created overnight at the makeover garden. A challenge too far for anyone, even Alan, bearing in mind that five minutes before, the hedge had been a van-load of box plants in pots. The result was chunky rather than sharp.

Err… hedges

Two months later, we were invited to see the results, and we can’t complain about the free publicity.

Veddw popped up for quite a few minutes in an hour-long programme, however irrelevant it appeared to be, and our very odd name mentioned a generous number of times. Plus, I had my picture taken with Alan. What more could any girl ask?

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This post originally appeared in The Telegraph. Publishing things like this is not, though, the way to get more television exposure in the UK. If that’s what you’d like, smile and keep quiet.

But our appearance as one of Alan Titchmarsh’s Best British Gardens popped up in The Telegraph several years later, and must be down to this.

Photos – thank you, Charles Hawes, as ever.