I’d say it’s great fun and worth doing. I had that chance last weekend on BBC ONE Sunday Morning Live and I had a great time hanging around for hours outside Broadcasting House in the cold and wet (without so much as a sniff of a cup of tea).
The BBC had rung me on the Thursday out of the blue via a contact form on my blog, so that very fact makes me happy and means that my blog is visible to search engines. Apparently if you google “garden blogger Julie” I come up.
After a phone chat about all the joys and benefits of gardening they asked me to join a group piece and asked me to bring some props. I took with me two coloured chairs, a red table and some coloured pots and colourful plants. The trousers helped too.
Colour
My trousers even match my garden chair and my watering can!
The point I wanted to illustrate was that you can inject colour all year round with permanent colourful furniture rather than rely on transient colour from plants.
So outside Broadcasting House on a patch of fake grass several of us from various kinds of gardens were interviewed for a few seconds by a very upbeat presenter. There were community gardeners from Hackney, a beekeeper, two Sikh gardeners, a Buddhist gardener from the Peace garden by the Imperial War Museum and a family with an apple press from a community orchard.
Sharing
I was happy that I made my point about the colour and also a second important point – gardening being about sharing.
I was asked how garden blogging had affected my life. It has massively. If you share your garden online you need never feel either alone or lonely. Gardens are for sharing and most of us online want others to see our pride and joy as well as our mistakes, experiments and disasters. Gardeners are optimistic, supportive and always encouraging.
I’d sent the BBC researcher some photos and they showed a fantastic pic of the garden back in May to illustrate my point that the garden is mainly green with splashes of colour from furniture and pots. In a shady garden it’s not easy to have colourful flowers all year around so I focus on greens.
Back garden showing splashed of colour
It was great seeing a photo of the garden on TV – it looked fantastic on the big screen.
You can see my bit here and my two minute slot is about 43 minutes in. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get to mention the name of my blog – what a missed opportunity! What am amateur!
I’m embarrassed to admit this but travelling on the Tube this week I sort of expected someone to say “Oh haven’t I seen you on the telly?”. No, really. It entered my mind. Briefly. But no one did. Such is the fleeting nature of fame.
And not even a cup of tea.
Lovely little segment and they did choose beautiful photos. Enjoyed the message of using permanent structures to add colour through the year. I’ve used the same blue paint through furniture in the garden to tie areas together. It’s in need of a fresh coat though.
Thankyou so much Joshua – I’m glad the main message got through the rather hectic pace. Hope to see some pics of your shade of blue on Twitter sometime. I fell in love with the blue furniture at Kiftsgate garden when I visited it. Some shades of blue just set off the greens in a garden so beautifully.
You’ve made such excellent points really well here Julie.
thankyou so much Sarah for saying so. I really felt it from the heart and I feel that came across. I really am never alone with the gardening community.
I waited till you came on thought you came over very interesting and informative in such a short interview.really enjoy looking at small gardens have one myself good to see other ideas thinking of using some bright paint next time I get the paint brush out .Move over monty !!!!
Thankyou for your kind comment – and I wonder what colour you will choose to go with.
Good for you. No tea though was rather poor. xx
thanks Mike. I know!