A number of gardens that were started by well-known Gardeners' World presenter Geoff Hamilton, who passed away in 1996, will soon turn 40. Nick, Geoff's son, discusses carrying on his father's legacy with BBC News.
Millions of Friday night TV viewers grew accustomed to these backgrounds.
A swell of devotees with trowels in hand were inspired by the ornamental kitchen garden, cottage garden, and Versailles garden—all of which came with countless suggestions on how to replicate them in your own backyard.
Some even traveled to Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland themselves in the hopes of obtaining admission to view the lush borders and abundant vegetable plots.
However, those who did did so with disappointment. Barnsdale was shut to the public at the time.
Nick, who now manages the location as a tourist destination, recalled that a couple of elderly ladies showed up one day and insisted they should be allowed access to the gardens because they paid their license fee.
We were unable to let them in because they were filming at the time.
The gardens would have been completely destroyed if we had opened them during those years because 60,000 people would have come here every weekend with no place to park or eat. ".
Hopefully, those two women have visited the location again since it has been open since 1997.
In the 1970s, Geoff first made guest appearances on Gardeners' World before taking over as the show's regular presenter in 1979.
He purchased Barnsdale, which was farmland and pastureland, in 1983.
As a teenager at the time, Nick recalled, "It was just a ploughed field and he started it from scratch.".
Geoff and the production team made the decision to film his Gardeners' World broadcasts in Barnsdale beginning in 1985.
Geoff then did something extremely unusual, but it was ideal for television.
He chose to divide the eight-acre (three-hectare) site into 38 distinct gardens, many of which served as the backdrop for episodes of the show in the 1980s and 1990s.
According to Nick, "the size of the gardens was comparable to what most people have as their back garden at home.".
"That's what made it so inspirational, in my opinion. I have no idea what drove him to act that way.
"He was completely out of his mind, and he used to have these kinds of fantastic ideas that most people would never have thought of constantly pop into his head. ".
From the Versailles garden's lavishly textured borders to the low-budget garden, each garden had a unique theme.
He was well aware that people had to garden on a tight budget, so Nick said he came up with suggestions for how to feed a family of four from your garden for just £2 a week.
Although Geoff was originally from the East End of London, when he was two his family moved to Hertfordshire.
"A man at the end of the road had a nursery, and he worked there as a summer job as a 15-year-old before becoming a self-employed landscape gardener," said Nick.
Nick claimed that his father was "the world's worst businessman" and went bankrupt despite starting his own garden center at one point.
However, it was because of this that he decided to pursue a career in gardening journalism, which ultimately brought him to Gardeners' World.
He became passionate about organic gardening after his insatiable curiosity led him to look into peat-free and chemical-free growing.
According to Nick, "He was always eager to get new information about anything and everything.".
"He found the Garden Organic association and became convinced that this was the best course of action, and he eventually became at the forefront of that movement.
It seems as though horticulture is still catching up with him 27 years after his passing. He has been a catalyst for a lot of change.
But he would be overjoyed to learn that people are now able to appreciate his preferred method of doing things. ".
Geoff passed away in 1996 at the young age of 59 from a heart attack.
- In 1968, Gardeners' World made its debut on television. Prior to Percy Thrower taking over in 1969, it was first broadcast by Ken Burras.
- Alan Titchmarsh took over for Geoff as the primary presenter in 1996.
- From his Longmeadow home in Herefordshire, where he frequently has his dogs with him, Monty Don currently presents the show.
Fans who had formed a close bond with a man who, in Nick's words, was exactly as he appeared on television shed a lot of tears over his passing.
Even today, he said, "we still get people crying when they talk about him.".
It was and still is mind-boggling. I recently gave a talk at Barnsdale, and when I joked about how difficult it might be to live with him, there was dead silence. I must have offended the Pope, it seemed.
He was unaware of his true level of popularity. ".
His three sons were also greatly shocked by Geoff's passing.
Nick assumed control of Barnsdale because he is the only one of the three to have inherited his father's lifelong love of gardening.
On some land at the end of the gardens, where he had already established a nursery, he built the tea room and the much-needed parking lot.
The number of visitors has decreased to a more manageable 32,000 per year from the initial 63,000 visitors in the first year of operation.
A garden, as my father used to say, is a work in progress, said Nick, who oversees the location with a team of 18 people overall and six gardeners.
The garden has changed since his time and is not historically significant. There are some gardens that he would recall, like the parterre garden and the ornamental kitchen garden, but our goal is to keep progressing and inspire others. ".
On August 6, he plans to celebrate Barnsdale's anniversary at a ticketed event, but he also said that the staff was considering other ways to celebrate throughout the year.
