Saturday, August 15, would have been gardener Geoff Hamilton’s 90th birthday.
The horticulturalist, author and much-loved presenter of BBC Gardeners’ World is remembered as ‘the people’s gardener’ who made good growing techniques accessible, and his inspirational legacy lives on at Barnsdale in Rutland.
Geoff’s links with the area began in the early 1980s, when he moved to a Victorian farmhouse with pastureland west of Exton.
Geoff Hamilton holding a lettuce in the Ornamental Kitchen Garden at Barnsdale Gardens. Photo: Steve Hamilton
He began turning the pasture into gardens and, over the following decade, transformed open acres into more than 30 plots, each the size of a typical garden, each with a theme or style, and each ideal for demonstrating plant choices and gardening know-how on television.
With his trademark jeans and rolled-up sleeves, and a knack for building cold frames out of salvaged timber and old window frames, Geoff showed viewers that a beautiful garden needn’t cost a fortune. It just took patience, creativity, and love for the soil.
Among Geoff’s favourite plants were roses and a few months after his death from a heart attack in August 1996, the ‘Geoff Hamilton’ rose was released. The fragrant, soft pink variety is available from the nursery shop at Barnsdale Gardens.
Barnsdale Gardens owner Nick Hamilton and head gardener Jon Brocklebank. Photo: Iliffe Media
But the allotment garden was where Geoff enjoyed spending his time, and as his son Nick remembers: “If anyone couldn’t find him, you could usually track him down in the allotment.”
Nick, one of three sons, has been in horticulture for 44 years now runs Barnsdale Gardens. Over the 30 years since his dad died, he has carefully maintained many of Geoff’s original designs, while evolving some of the gardens to reflect changing tastes and the availability of new cultivars.
“He had vision,” Nick recalled with a smile. “He would say to my stepmum, ‘Lynda, Lynda! I’ve had an idea!’ and she would listen and agree wholeheartedly that it was a fabulous idea – without really having a clue what he was imagining.”
For Geoff, inspiration came from many different places, including the Gardens of Versailles in Paris.
Barnsdale Gardens’ Seaside Garden. Photo: Iliffe MediaBarnsdale Gardens in summer. Photo: Iliffe Media
But the creations he shared with viewers were achievable interpretations, and this is something Nick has continued for visitors to Barnsdale, having brought back ideas from Monet’s Garden in Normandy for ‘The Cutting Garden’.
This replaced his father’s ‘£2 Garden’, from which it once was possible to feed a family that cheaply each week.
Nick believes Geoff was ‘a cottage gardener at heart’, explaining: “If you see a piece of soil and feel the need to put a plant in it, then you’re probably a cottage gardener. And that was him. He loved soil, but he was always covering it.”
Nick, like Geoff before him, is president of the Cottage Garden Society, and coincidentally, the local branch will be at the Rutland Flower Show over the weekend of Geoff’s 90th, which takes place from August 14 to 16 at the showground in Oakham.
Geoff Hamilton sitting on a homemade oak beam bench with a cup of tea at Barnsdale Gardens. Photo: Steve HamiltonGeoff Hamilton at Barnsdale Gardens, which was his home and the setting for BBC Gardeners’ World for many years
In recognition of Geoff Hamilton’s great gardening legacy, and timed 30 years after his death in 1996 from a heart attack and around his milestone birthday, Barnsdale Gardens and the BBC have announced commemorative events.
BBC Four is screening an evening’s tribute on Saturday (August 1), including an episode first televised in 2016 in which Monty Don and Adam Frost revisited Barnsdale Gardens to share their personal memories of Geoff.
There will also be a chance to watch the Gardeners’ World episode broadcast 40 years ago to the day after its original transmission, plus ‘Geoff Hamilton: A Man and His Garden – The Barnsdale Story’, a nostalgic tribute from 1998.
From 9am on Saturday, August 15, there will be free admission to Barnsdale Gardens, off The Avenue, Exton, for the first 90 paying visitors – children and ‘Friends of Barnsdale’ can enter for free.
Visiting the gardens, which are open from 9am to 5pm daily, costs £16 for adults and there are group discounts and Friends of Barnsdale offers that provide one year’s entry and discounts.
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