Gardeners’ World presenter Joe Swift says he was slapped with a six-week television ban after he designed his own garden at the Chelsea Flower Show
Joe presents Gardeners’ World with Monty Don(Image: Western Daily Press)
Gardeners’ World presenter Joe Swift faced a BBC “banned” following a professional decision he took. Joe, 60, has been a fixture on the beloved show since 1998.
He has additionally hosted the BBC’s coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show since 2001. However, it wasn’t until over ten years later that Joe chose to actually exhibit a garden at the event.
This led to him partnering with DIY retailer Homebase in 2012, resulting in Joe competing in the main “show garden” category at the competition.
The move resulted in Joe receiving a six-week presenting suspension from the BBC. The broadcaster stated at the time that simultaneously presenting and competing at the flower show constituted a “conflict of interest”.
Fellow television gardeners Chris Beardshaw and Andy Sturgeon, who hosted the daytime coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show, faced comparable suspensions. Joe discussed his choice to exhibit a garden at the event on the Garden Masterclass podcast.
Joe decided he wanted to design a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show(Image: Western Daily Press)
He said: ” I’d been presenting the programme for a long time, since 2001 actually, and every time I went I would stand on other people’s gardens, friends of mine, and you’d stand on their gardens and think, ‘I really want to do one of these’.
“And I actually got an opportunity because Homebase, the DIY shop, were teaming up with Teenage Cancer Trust and they asked me a year in advance. Tom Hoblyn had done three gardens for them and I thought, ‘I’ve just got to go for this’.
“The BBC banned me from the TV for six weeks over this garden but I didn’t care. I was like, ‘I don’t care, I’ve got to do it.”
At the time, a BBC spokesman told the Telegraph: “The BBC has guidelines which ensure editorial integrity and independence from external interests. Each instance is looked at on an individual basis.”
Meanwhile, Bob Sweet, the then head of shows at the RHS, revealed that the BBC had made clear that anyone “heavily involved in designing a show garden” would be prohibited from presenting coverage of the event. He further noted that the BBC maintains “quite strong rules about conflict of interest for presenters”.
Joe designed a garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show(Image: Western Daily Press)
Last year, fellow Gardeners’ World presenter Monty Don created his debut garden at the show, designing the RHS and BBC Radio 2 Dog Garden — a special initiative aimed at crafting the perfect outdoor space for four-legged companions.
Joe returns to our screens with Gardeners’ World tonight (May 8), heading to the RHS Malvern Spring Festival in Worcestershire alongside co-presenter Rachel de Thame.
The pair will also venture to the Devon-Somerset border to meet a grower who has transformed a woodland setting into a spectacular nursery. Additionally, a garden designer will showcase the craft of pressing flowers.
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