1. Spotted Charlie Dimmock at Morden Hall launching pond invasive campaign. Asked her about Calendar Girls-an odd mix of pondweed and breasts in the interview. The local aquatics shop has closed its outdoor area. Lots of flies. Lots of internet pond invasives still available. An odd campaign.

2. Another gardening TV wannabe who auditions each year is Ceri Thomas, Gardening Which? editor. Apparently she’s trying to lose her estuary/Welsh twang. Also Cleve West.

3. How many garden centres sell condoms? Garden Organics Webbs in Ryton, Warwickshire, sells green ones. Bonktastic.

4. Inchbald School of Design celebrated 50 years at the Cavalry and Guards Club in Piccadilly this week. I had to borrow a tie from the concierge. Two major generals were calling each other ‘old boy’ on the stairs. John Brookes told me he thought Chelsea designers were detached from what people want because of overhead cameras-they only care what looks good on TV. Inchbald founder Jacqueline Duncan slammed education ministers for being unpleasant to private educators. Apparently she is the self made daughter of a char lady. Andy Sturgeon and Anthony Paul flitted about too.

5. Andy Hulme, a 52-year-old gardener who looks like a cross between Dave Grohl and Eric Clapton, is Vivienne Westwood’s muse, according to ES. He did the foliage for her Erotic Zones show and now does catwalk for her.

6. Before my RHS exam last week I should have taken Ritalin, the drug ADHD hyper kids get. It helps concentration and students are going to be tested for it. I used to administer it to kids when I was a teacher, keeping the leftovers for myself.

7. Fave garden columnist Dan Pearson says in the new look Observer mag this week (which has dropped its reader offers losing the author 10 per cent and paper 10 per cent of sales): “There are only so many times you can pore over a seed catalogue, so I tidied the shed, then tidied it again.” I can name at least half a dozen garden writers who think these two themes have been enough to sustain their writing throughout the winter. Now they are onto snowdrops after the winter break from Cornus Venus.

8. Bristol Zoo head of horticulture Eddie Mole, who I once interviewed, has a hidden passion. He’s an international pinball player, who has owned 120 pinball machines and has qualified for this year’s world champs. Meanwhile, Pinball Wizard composer Pete Townshend’s daughter, garden hack Emma Townshend, is pregnant.

9. Carol ‘judith chalmers/gloria hunniford/pat wicks’ Warters has left Garden News. Where has she gone? No-one knows.

10. I tell you what annoys me. People who say I think before everything they say. And people who say I tell you what before everything they say. Eg Simon Cowell. To expand on this, Darren Gough and Stan Collymore, now on TalkSport radio, were fine sportsmen in their day. But when they broadcast they show minimal insights into anything, using stock phrases and being ill-informed yet argumentative, starting non-exisitent debates. 'Ring us up and tell us what you think', says dogger Stan. A fan rings, say from Northampton Town. Stan thinks they're called United. he knows none of their players, what league they are in, how they are doing, or what the correct name of 'United' is. Yet he loves it that the guy rang, (though the guy is very, very boring about his club's woes). We learn nothing.

11. Paying to park at Richmond Park-last time I was there people were looking for the meters. So what if we have to pay twice-to fund the park and to park at the park. It’s expected, if not good-see NHS carparks.

12. Spotted Oliver Finnan, Portsmouth FC footballer Steve Finnan’s dad, at a bus stop near my house in Wimbledon.Geoffrey Howe, at Strutton Ground in London.

13. Diarmuid Gavin is fronting a government anti-peat campaign. The same Diarmuid Gavin who fronted Westland multipurpose TV adverts in 2006. The compost is 80 per cent peat.

14. The Evening Standard’s chief arts hack Louise Jury reports that the Tate Britain is hosting “London’s first major exhibition” of Henry Moore  sculptures in more than two decades. This will be news to Kew Gardens, which hosted a “landmark” exhibition of Moore works less than two years ago.

15. MA: I wondered if this was a real allotment blog or the Garden Tools direct website http://www.gardening-tools-direct.co.uk/blog/ please?

Kay Sexton (aka The Allotment Blogger):  “It is both. I have an allotment at Weald Allotments, Brighton and Hove and am Hove Horticultural and Allotment Association Secretary too, but GTD pay me per blog I write about my own plot, and the issues and delights that emerge from being an allotment committee person. I also have a growing-your-own blog with the Brighton Argus where I explain how to grow and cook your own veg and fruit.”

16. Linda Gray from Readers Digest contacted me the other day for an insiders’ view into garden centres. She used to work for BBC-then-Haymarket-then defunct women’s mag Eve. I used to work for its brother mag Steve. Now RD has gone belly up. My mate Craig used to get it as a Christmas subscription from his Dad. They didn’t get on. I remember when Christopher Reeve was on the cover in Oct 2004 saying ‘I’m still here because of the love of my family’. He died later that month.

Twitter at mattapple1. Also Telegraph

1. The BBC had a try-out day recently for budding garden TV presenters. Martyn Cox and Lia Leendertz donned the greasepaint along with seven others. Who were they?

2. James Alexander-Sinclair told Association of Professional Landscapers awards delegates that when designers get uppity it’s called ‘doing a Diarmuid’.

3. Mackenzie Crook is an accomplished painter of botanical specimens such as Allium Ursinum-they are in his new play Jerusalem’s brochure. He wants to build a Chelsea Flower Show garden.

4. BBC gardening presenters cost between £1,000 and £25,000 for public appearances. But who costs what? The fop Ben Fogle, amazingly, is £25,000 too.

5. Exclusive: “Where to find must-grow plants 2010 by Pattie Barron-Suttons, T&M, Mr Fothergills, Unwins."

6. Sir Tom Hunter lookalike Aldo Zilli has opened a vegetarian resto, Signor Zilli Soho. Saw him in Center Parcs at Longleat last week. Bit thin on celebs otherwise this week. Does Jim Fitzpatrick count? Justin Rowlatt?

7. Murder news: Aconite was used for a murder in London recently.

A gardener killed his lover because she mocked the size of his penis-is this common? (the penis not the murder)

8. Celia Birtwell has made some garden tools. David Austin's is building a rose garden for Ryanair's Michael O'Leary. The consultant gets chauffeured from Dublin airport to O'Leary's country pad. Also for Sir John and Lady Ritblat in Berks.

9. Killing an animal on a TV show is “unacceptable” according to the Aussie RSPCA. I'm a celeb get me out of here tv show rat murderer Gianni de Campo is now a five figure sum-luckily people who booked him for 2010 got him at low four figure pre IACGMOH rates.

10. I’m thinking  taking up garden designing. I want to do a funeral garden with lily pearly gates,  a prawn cocktail garden made from salmon pink roses, a Britain in Bloom welcome to Keswick garden with Moot Hall clock, a Jeff Koons dog garden and a wedding garden with horseshoe. But I’d never do a Chinnook.

11. Can’t wait for Stephen Lacey’s RHS presidency manifesto. And for Alan Titchmarsh and Penelope Keith in conversation. And this

12. Pr people:

Sarah Lie [Sarah.Lie@brands2life.com]

xxx has been writing passionately about gardening for over twenty-five years and has become one of the most significant contributors to English gardening literature this century. A regular contributor to both xxx and xxx, with 14 gardening books under their belt, xxx’s repertoire of writing is beyond comparison.   Guess below in comments. Don't email me or you won;t be eligible.

14. How about doing Eggheads?

16. Went to Brighton at the weekend and attempted to engage the locals in conversation.  I recounted a ventriloquist I saw at Grower Of the Year Awards awards last week who fixed a mask to our publisher Richard Watts’ face and made him say un-PC things thru ventriloquism. Paul Zerdin. Quite a good conceit. Also recounted the twitter porno potatoes banter of Garden Monkey, Mark Diacono and James Alexander-Sinclair. Pentland Javelin, King Edward etc. Someone said to me ‘jacket?’ My efforts at conversation ended. Any porno potato ideas?

17.  Can your 11 month year old whistle and stand up at the same time?

1. Yellow Book launch-Joe Swift made a speech to about a 500 gardening hacks and 100 NGS garden openers on the theme of…thank you for opening your garden/writing about National Gardens Scheme. A missed opportunity. The assembled hacks could do with food for thought. BBC Gardeners' World were filming it. Victoria Summerley mentioned the non-winning of Garden Media Guild prize incident she posted on her blog.

Emma Townshend writes in the Yellow Book…"when I was a little girl we’d sit on a Sunday afternoon after lunch in my grandma’s kitchen and open a drawer and get out the YB and flick through and etc.” ahhh.

Lookalikes-Hayley Monckton-Louisa Preston Colin Firth-Stephen Bennett (no, I can't see it either) PW Botha- Nigel Colborn-Mike Wyatt.

2. If you see a garden profile in the national press, chances are it has come from the YB. A bit like a plant piece will include the national collection holder from NCCPG book. Spoke to RHS plant guy Graham Rice about plant trials. he's been asked to step up in trials committees and wants to ensure individual trials are costed/weighed. Spoke to Sir Roddy Llewellyn, who said he is lining up Joanna Lumley to launch Southport Flower Show this 19 August. He said northerners were better than southerners. I agree. Joe Swift made two jokes about Alan Titchmarsh’s wages-one was on how someone made £12,000 for charity in six hours-“The sort of £ AT gets!” and another was about a big cheque “the sort AT gets”. Double the £12k I’m told. Marianne Majerus said NGS was “the most perfect antidote to our broken society”. Also bumped into Seabrook, Steve Bradley, Liz Dobbs, Marc Rosenberg, Christopher Woodward, Geoff Hodge. But where was Martyn Cox?

3. Cox, 43, turned up at the Garden Press Event event the next day, along with 208 other hacks (who had said they were coming-I didn't count them). My theory is the gardening hacks at the Garden Press event is less enjoyed by the hacks than the Yellow Book because they have to do some work at Garden Press Event rather than look at pics of nice gardens gossip, eat cake and booze. Human nature I suppose.

Seriously, the hacks like visiting nice gardens-Yellow Book listed usually-but don't like writing about boring old products and growing your own etc. But as consumer gardening mags and papers get more commercial that is what they'll have to do, unless they are just writing guff on blogs like this.

5. Alys Fowler’s new programme The Edible Garden will start on BBC2 on March 16. My sources suggest it is already being dubbed Five Go Mad in Kings Heath as Alys, Claire Savage etc enjoy outdoor picnics of homegrown ham and turkey sandwiches, bags of lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, heaps of tomato, and lashings of ginger beer.

6. Tapas seven update-media types the RHS is hosting for lunch at Goya in Lupus St SW1V 3EB on 17 Feb. I suggest a demo outside. Pattie Barron, Camilla Phelps, Tamsin Westhorpe, Juliet Roberts, Cleve West, Rosemary Edwards, Lauren Holden, Hazel Sillver, Jane Owen, Stephenie Meyer, James Alexander-Sinclair, Magda Ibrahim; Mark Diacono and Martyn Cox.  

7. Saw Guardian was using Emma Cooper for recent make do and mend supplements gardening bits-eg make your own cuttings etc. Wonder why they didn’t use gardening ed and write Jane Perrone and Lia Leendertz?

8. This was good.

9. Last year it was estimated that British men spent £4.2bn on the country’s sex industry-an eight per cent rise on previous years. Uncannily, the gardening industry is also worth £4.2bn, up eight per cent according to some sources.

10. MA: How did you find the conference? Garden centre person: I used satnav.

MA: You harvest at Astley Moss as in Rick Astley? William Sinclair's Bernard Burns: Yes.

11.  Like this site

12. Spotted: David Lloyd spotted talking about Andy Murray in Wimbledon village. Also, Joe Swift on South Bank-though does this count?

13. I once (a few years ago) saw footballer Wayne Bridge in Cobham with his girlfriend, Vanessa Perroncel. We went to Pizza Express. On a Sunday afternoon.

14. John Terry's house in Oxshott is for sale Graham Rice tells me. Homeless Hayley Monckton is considering an offer. 

15. I suggested Bridge as an alternative to Glen Johnson as full back for England at the recent GCA conference to Glee's Dave Langrish at the bar. I had to be reminded that Bridge plays on the opposite side of the defence to Johnson. This is one of the worst male crimes that can be made.
Btw, I'm a Gleek-I'm obsessed with the garden centre trade show Glee. I hear that at the recent Garden Centre Association conference rival show Garden Expo was banned form exhibiting, sponsoring, or even attending. Don't stop believing Expo!
 

16. The late Steven Wells wrote this in the Guardian:

The People's Republic of China are torturing, culture-smothering and democracy-crushing bastards. But then so was Germany in 1936. And Britain in 1908 and 1948. And the Soviet Union in 1980. And the USA in 1984 and 1996. Then there was the massacre of hundreds of Mexican demonstrators to pave the way for the games of 1968. In fact the history of the modern Olympic movement is one long, sad litany of imperialism, racism, exploitation and oppression. But that's not why I think we should boycott the Olympics.

And I do think we should boycott them. Not just the Beijing games. All of them. Forever. Why? Because of the total disconnect between what the Olympics are supposed to be about (grace, beauty, athleticism, sportsmanship, solidarity, brotherhood and the human spirit) and the sordid reality — as superbly illustrated by what the preparations for the 2012 London games are doing to the Manor Garden allotments.

Ask yourself this question: are the drug-riddled, debased and corrupt Olympics worth the demolition of a single 80-year-old community institution that genuinely and continually promotes health, mental wellbeing, exercise, neighbourliness and fresh vegetables? And (while we're at it) was it worth ripping up the much-loved and heavily used five-a-side football pitches in East London's Spitalfields market just so the City of London could have yet another identikit shopping/office development? (If you answered yes to either question, stop reading and trot off and fellate a stockbroker, you dominant ideology humping Tory ***).

Don't get me wrong. I dislike cockney gardeners just as much as the next professional Northern bigot.