Gardeners’ World presenter Alan Titchmarsh has issued an apology for a joke he made about BBC colleague Joe Swift
Alan took a playful poke at his BBC co-star(Image: Jeff Spicer, Getty Images)
Selecting plants for your garden comes down to individual preference, according to Alan Titchmarsh, although he couldn’t resist a playful swipe at fellow Gardeners’ World presenter Joe Swift when discussing garden colour palettes.
Writing for Scribehound, Alan jokes that Joe’s aversion to pink blooms likely stems from “being frightened by pink and green floral wallpaper in the smallest room of someone else’s house” and suggests that the Newcastle-born designer’s anti-pink bias might be remedied with “a session in the psychiatrist’s chair. Sorry Joe; only kidding.”
However, Alan acknowledges he’s “not immune to current fads and fancies” himself, revealing that he would invariably opt for a shrub rose over a hybrid tea rose when choosing roses for his own garden.
Referencing celebrated garden designers from history, including Vita Sackville-West with her famous harmony of green, silver and white plantings in the “White Garden” at Sissinghurst, Alan maintains that there’s no justification for excluding — or favouring — any particular colour.
Joe Swift isn’t keen on pink flowers(Image: Western Daily press)
Such restrictions are “whims, fancies, prejudices,” he argues, “all often based on nothing more than a need to impress one’s fellow gardeners.”
Alan admits he’s utterly baffled by garden designers who confess to being colourblind. “It leaves me feeling as bewildered as Strictly champion Chris McCausland,” he says.
“He told me that when he was almost blind he got down to the last 30 out of a group of 2,000 hopefuls who applied to join MI5. The prospect of potentially becoming the UK’s first blind spy was,” Alan adds, “great source material for a comedian.”
There’s just one unforgivable garden sin, Alan says: pampas grass(Image: Getty Images)
Alan believes that a sense of fun is crucial in a garden. “When walking down a street, I encounter a front garden whose badly placed lumps of granite are billowing with clouds of aubrieta and arabis, snow-in-summer and mossy saxifrages. I cannot help but smile at their joyful exuberance.”
He asserts that any garden that brings joy to its owner is successful, whether it’s a “tasteful” monochrome design in the style of Sackville-West or a vibrant explosion of colour. However, he admits there are certain gardening faux pas he cannot overlook — pampas grass has no redeeming qualities.
For Alan, the most egregious gardening sin is having no garden at all. “A sea of concrete that requires nothing more than a stiff yard broom should make your heart sink more than a riot of supposedly unfashionable colour,” he declares.
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