Garden Rescue with Charlie Dimmock & the Rich brothers

I'm watching a bit of daytime telly at the moment:)

One of the programmes currently running is Garden Rescue with Charlie Dimmock and the Rich Brothers.

I cannot believe that for the sake of drawing TV audiences that good horticulture and landscaping practices are being ignored. It feels like a return to the Groundforce days.

The Rich brothers come over as very likeable people but obviously still relatively inexperienced. Charlie Dimmock's comments and ideas are very lacking in thought though.

Yesterday's episode involved turning s 50ft long garden into a wildlife haven.

Much of the work (carried out in the winter) was completed in the pouring rain. The soil was saturated. There appeared to be no organic matter nor planting media added when planting. A dead tree was cut down, the logs stacked up and sprinkled with edible fungi spores (although there was evicence of existing fungi that I would definitely not want to eat, attached to the dead trunk).

Charlie Dimmock created a bug hotel by stuffing terracotta land drains with dead steams and different materials and stacked this randomly under a tree. Because the grass was short (as it was winter it was all very visible) you could see the feature but anyone knows, with experience, that once the spring growth kicked in that this feature would have become a tangled unmanageable mess.

The shows just feel messy and ill-informed.

Anyone else watch the shows, if so, what do you think?

Replies

Jon Ward July 21, 2016 at 9:58am

I have watched all these on Iplayer, must want to torture myself. The work is often very sloppily done I feel. Th basic designs seem OK as sketch ideas but they then work to a budget that is not realistic for their ideas.i find it most frustrating watching them lay turf, all the effort I go to lay turf properly and not strand on it or my prepared soil and they just throw it down amd it is job done.
Alexander Bell July 21, 2016 at 11:12am

I worked at Chelsea when they got there first gold medal (I think 2013). At Chelsea, the key for gold is not how expansive your hard landscaping is, but rather the quality of planting. I remember the rich brothers a few gardens down being given plants and asking people 'what's this' or 'where should this go'. If you have designed a garden, you should have the vision to know exactly where xyz goes, what shapes you need etc. It was at that moment when you realise they are just a front for there fathers landscaping business.
- PRO
  
  Geoffrey King > Alexander Bell July 28, 2016 at 7:26pm
  
  This lack of plant knowledge is a 'perennial' problem landscape architects and landscape architecture courses with have little or no plant knowledge involed.
  
  The 'Rich' bros both got BA 1st Class Landscape Arch degree at Leeds Becket uni but you need an MA as well to be a practicing LA even then the MA does not cover plants
Colin Hunt July 21, 2016 at 11:15am

If I had a quid for every time someone has said "I bet you watch Groundforce dont you". The look of shock when I say that I can't stand it, the price expectation is unrealistic, the standard of work makes me wince and when they top the garden with 6 tons of pea shingle I scream "I'll have to wheel that lot out, re-do the deck re-set the slabs in 5 years time"!!

Don't get me started!
David Benson July 21, 2016 at 11:12pm

I thought folk only watched it for Charlie Dimmock's assets
- Billybop > David Benson July 22, 2016 at 7:40am
  
  back in the day maybe... i have the dvd of the series where celebrities including charlie had their portrait painted by a group of artists, the host (Rolf Harris, as it happens) could hardly keep his hands off her...despite the ravages of time to which we are all subjected she is still a recognisable face, although it was with some surprise I saw her endorsing a pound shop range of gardening products recently
- Andrew Goss > David Benson July 29, 2016 at 3:47pm
  
  Don't think Charlies been doing a lot of gardening work for a few years the way she has put on weight ...
  - PRO
    
    Geoffrey King > Andrew Goss July 29, 2016 at 8:59pm
    
    Dimmock's mother Sue Kennedy, 59, and her stepfather Rob, 58, were both killed in the tsunami caused by the December 2004 Asian earthquake
    
    maybe a reason
    - PRO
      
      Angela Sharp > Geoffrey King July 30, 2016 at 12:27am
      
      Even accounting for the fact that was 12 years ago nearly she must have been very young when she had her as Charlie Dimmock must be in her 50s now surely.
      - Mark Hunter > Angela Sharp July 30, 2016 at 5:52am
        
        as Charlie Dimmock must be in her 50s now surely.
        
        49 - Charlie Dimmock