Not a great week. One paper fired me. One ex England cricketer decided he didn’t want me to write his biog at the moment. And a TV gardener said he won’t talk to me and that I’m not popular. Guess who’s who at the bottom in the comments. Win a copy of Matthew Wilson's Landscape Man (series starts 22 April C4 8pm).

On the bright side, I’m Haymarket’s third most popular blogger I’m told. So I’m gonna do more so I go top. I do sell my soul. And try too hard. Latest who told me they read it (unprompted)-Hilary Benn, Joe Swift, Fergus Garrett. Didn’t say they liked it unfortunately. While I'm at it I'm also Daily Telegraph gardening website's most popular writer. But not for much longer!

Lookalikes-Danny Adamson (Sinclair Horticulture) and Matt Dawson (rugby/Question of Sport)

1. In the last few weeks the Government has launched three campaigns-against pond weed fronted by Charlie Dimmock at National Trust property Morden Hall, for allotments with Joe Swift in attendance, and to announce a no peat in garden centres campaign fronted by Diarmuid Gavin.

I was at all three, being nice to TV gardeners and politicians, being nice to Defra bods and getting in the way of BBC broadcaster Sarah Mukherjee’s broadcast satellite dish, as well as getting an earful from a TV gardener ("put that in your blog!").

Those who were there with number of people/appearances in brackets: Sarah Mukherjee (one), Hilary Benn (two), Huw Irranca Davies (one), Defra PRs and wonks (about 100), Dimmock (one), Diarmuid Gavin (none), Joe Swift (one), newspaper environment correspondents (none), trade gardening writers other than me (none), any other garden media types (none) other than me (three). Yet the stories ran everywhere with the same quotes-wonder how they got them? Then you get your opinion pieces where the PR is filtered through the tired prejudices of bloggers interviewing themselves. I wonder why they can’t be bothered asking influential people what they are doing face to face at the time?

2. Odd quote: “In respect of the professional horticultural use of peat, Defra plans to publish a formal consultation document in the summer that is likely to include proposals to further reduce peat use within the professional market. The NFU, as the only trade association solely representing commercial growers’ interests on this issue, will be closely involved in this consultation process.” See last sentence.

3. From Dominic Elsom-Quality Garden Tools-As ever I enjoy your comments on DT and Hort Week blogs. Particularly interesting are your posts on allotment gardening - our blogger 'The Fat Gardener' posted this on his blog for us at the weekend:  he (like you) thinks many questions need to be answered with regards to allotment provision.

4. Gardeners’ World. Mentioned buying from garden centres several times. Inspirational according to my mum-a typical watcher. Has a new producer, Liz Rumbold from the Gadget Show, but no sign of Rosemary Edwards on the credits. Toby Buckland has new more fashionable shoes and jacket. Pieces on sweet peas went down well. Pleasant and inoffensive-just what the audience-eg my mum, want. Meant to be intervening Toby Buckland this week-but he postponed last week, ominously.

5. The Christopher Lloyd/Stephen Anderton book His Life at Great Dixter has caused some comment. Expect to see Lady Mary Keen's impassioned attack in Daily Telegraph soon. Fergus Garrett just wants to see Christo portrayed as he saw him. I've got the book and its more entertaining than the average garden tome. There are 18 pages on close male friendships and nine on 'passion for youth', which has upset MK though.

6. Diarmuid Gavin was in a new BBC series called Famous, Rich and Jobless this week. He said: “I’d never do it again-I found it too intrusive in terms of me.”

7. Politics news: Alan Titchmarsh interviewed David Cameron on TV this week. Cameron said he finds growing veg " a great way to relax". And that he’s a “young guy tryin’ to make a difference”. Gordon Brown didn’t do himself too many favours with his friend Piers Morgan. That's an AT iv, not Evan Davis, Jeremy Paxman, Matthew Parris, Nick Robinson, or John Humphrys.

John Walker is standing for Parliament with his own party, the Gardening Party (Kitchen Garden April).

8. Duty mental: Garden News: I agree with Alan Titchmarsh’s comments about ‘social network sites’ and I do not participate in them. But I feel angry and frustrated because of the various ‘light entertainment’ programmes he has become involved in since leaving gardeners’ world. Watching his chatshow I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There he was surrounded by dogs of all sizes displaying ‘prams and carriers’ for their pets and their owners. Alan seems to appear on our TV screens on a variety of programmes but never gardening ones anymore. I feel the programmes are sold to the nation because of his reputation,

Mrs C Burgess, West Bromwich.

9. From my new favourite allotment person, Margaret Campbell of Transition Towns West Kirkby: Last year, in association with the NSALG, we published a study of allotment waiting lists in England.
It showed that on average, for every 100 established plots there were 49 people on waiting lists. In the last major study in 1997 there were only 4 people waiting for every 100 plots in England.
This study is currently being repeated to assess what has happened in the last 12 months. The data collection is almost complete, and shows a very significant increase in waiting lists. We expect to be in a position to publish the results soon.

10. Otter research

 

PTES is also supporting other otter research through Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), which will investigate whether camera trapping of otters is a technique that can be used for identification purposes and revealing if otters have distinct individual visual characteristics such as seals. Current research techniques rely on investigation of visual signs such as otter spraints and/or DNA analysis to determine individuals. Publication date: Research will be completed by the end of May 2010 with story to be released to media midsummer 

11. John Terry has put in planning permission for an indoor swimming pool but that his place and his mum's next door in Oxshott are still on the market.

12. You might want to take a look at this: RHS online editor salary: £22k

Horticultural qualifications: "Knowledge of plants, gardening & horticulture to at least RHS General level."

13. Hackwatch-Louise Gray Daily Telegraph

Background: In February 2009, The National Trust got Monty Don to announce it was building 1,000 allotments at a press conference.

DT 8 Feb 2010 “The National Trust [allotment] scheme was so successful with 350 plots already set up.”

DT 19 February 2010 “The National Trust said yesterday that it has created more than 300 allotments in the last year.”

DT 4 March 2010 “The National Trust has already provided more than 300 allotments on its land around stately homes and country parks and is on course to establish 1,000 by 2012.”

The NT has 3.6m members and has created 300 allotments in a year. That’s one per 12,000 members.

(9 March Garden News-NT has created 300 allotments etc etc etc)

14. This Friday, London Transport Museum throws an adults only garden party as its exploration of Suburbia continues. The evening includes guerrilla gardening, free design surgeries with a qualified interior designer from Heal's, a crafty chance to make your own mosaic plant pot (hmm - mother's day gift idea alert) Wii games, music, curatorial tours and giant garden games. 18.45 until 22.00. Tickets £7 Adults, £5 Concessions and £5 per ticket for each group of 4 or more. Acton Depot's also open this weekend, along Suburban themes

15. Emma Townshend has had a baby boy. Cottesbrooke Plant Fair will feature talks from Alys Fowler, James Alexander-Sinclair and Dan Pearson. Ken Cox is a big Alys fan. The RHS has suggested I help Andy Sturgeon with his Chelsea garden. The English Gardening School is abandoning Chelsea Physic Garden for Chelsea Wharf leaving a big hole at CPG. Rosemary Alexander is overseeing a book on Christopher Lloyd. Needless to say, calling a few people about the indiscreet nature of Stephen Anderton’s book on Lloyd has caused me some grief. There is no reference to Ursula Buchan this week.

1. Met Hilary Benn at King’s Cross the other day. He was lovely but was alarmed when I told him that the allotment boom may be over (waiting lists have plateaued my research has found), as was another minister, John Denham, who kept telling people there were 300,000 people on allotment waiting lists. He meant 100,000, with 300,000 who have got allotments. Benn announced NSALG secretary Geoff Stokes death-sad news. GS never had an allotment but did have a 200ft garden.

2. More Chris Collins drug hell. TV gardeners are very upset with journalists at the mo. A mixture of nerves about BBC, RHS, blogs and I’m not sure what else. Any guesses please post below. 

3. Loved Indoor Garden Design’s Ian Drummond’s exhibition at the Barbican the other day. Finches were playing the guitar and drums. Drummond did the planting.

4. Rose Gray died the other day. She was at her husband David MacIlwaine's exhibition at Clifton Nurseries last year. Gray's River Cafe partner Ruth Rogers was definitely there with Richard Rogers. I once ate at River Cafe with the legendary Tom Wyatt, former Wyevale CEO Jim Hodkinson's pr. The cafe is the best restaurant near my work in Hammersmith. Good figs. If anyone wants to take me.

5. Gardener Peter Ling, 50, from Wallington, south London, has been jailed for life for murdering gardening lecturer Linda Casey with a rock. Jurors were told that Ling met Ms Casey, who had been having an affair with married Ian Tolfrey since 2002, in 2007 at her evening classes at Sutton College, south London. I just did RHS exams at that college.

6. Was due to meet C4's Embarrassing Bodies' Dr Christian Jesson this week. I was going to ask him if he had brought the giant plastic genitals he uses on his programme as a prop. And if Dr Pixie was with him because I know someone who's got this thing...

7. Will Sibley (wearing wine cords) was on Raymond Blanc's BBC2 programme this week talking about apples. Why don't the BBC promote their programmes properly? Gardeners' World starts again this week too I'm told. Greenacres is damp. Used to flood when it was rugby pitch. Alys Fowler asked me where she can get free turf the other day. Any offers, I'll pass them on.

8. In this month's RHS The Garden magazine, mumsie garden writer Helen Yemm went on about how raised beds are rubbish. I agree. I'm sure I've written this piece before-every year for three years during national allotment week. Wonder why The Garden didn't ask me to write it? In the same mag Ursula Buchan says it has been cold this winter. Apparently, she is John '39 Steps' Buchan's daughter! UB's daughter (JB's grandaughter) is getting married this summer in UB's garden.

9. Got the Sunday Telegraph this weekend. Top tips for springtime gardening from Elspeth Thompson and Bunny Guinness. And a piece on raised beds. This mum had got the paper to pay for her to pave over her garden and build six small raised beds. Cue, endless pieces on how she is self-sufficient. Rubbish place for the kids to play though. Costs thousands to set up too. And bad for flooding, wildlife, the environment in general.

10. Great stuff from Defra using garden celebs to front 'hearts and minds' campaigns. Charlie Dimmock, the face of a 'look after your pondweed' campaign, says a forthcoming ban on dumping pondweed in the wild is impossible to enforce. No media asked her or anyone else about this-they just ran the PR. Diarmuid Gavin is fronting a 'please don't use much peat' campaign-saves enforcing Labour government set targets of 90 per cent reduction this year (they have been abandoned cos they are impossible to meet in time). Defra claim Diarmuid told Westland to go peat-free in 2006. Diarmuid 'enforced' this by appearing in Westland's peat-based multi-purpose compost TV ads (the ones that got him banned form BBC presenting) at the same time. Strange Westland should use Diarmuid as technical advisor when introducing West Plus peat/wood fibre mix and not its own experts such as former Growing Media Assoication chair Dr Jamie Robinson. So, garden celebs are doing ok from fronting government hearts and minds campaigns at the mo.

11. Lady Mary Keen, Anna Pavord and Fergus Garrett have issues with Stephen Anderton's new book on Christopher Lloyd. Ukelele playing garden writer Anderton was indiscreet about late plantsman/writer Christo Lloyd's sexuality in his new biog. This should run and run.

12. Went to RHS HQ the other day where they kindly bought me sandwiches. RHS DG job advertised in Sunday Times last week acting DG Gordon Seabright sadly told us. Diarmuid's sponsorship fell through. Chelsea 2013 will be the centenary. Seabright is in charge of the party, at the mo.

13. Talked to Oliver Peyton about him taking over Kew's catering the other day. Expect changes to personnel BBC's Great British Chef-he was filming when I spoke to him. He wouldn't slag off public garden's catering cos he said he was 'in a good mood'. Then the kiddie started wailing. Peyton suggested he was hungry, possibly for pappilotte of peas and pomegranate (£14).

14. Gregg Wallace has opened a resto in Putney. Met the Masterchef baldie at an awards once. He liked rugby, real ale and smoking. Since then, he's met a Cumbrian teacher on the net.

15. Saw Hardeep Singh Kohli in Cafe Nero in Piccadilly the other day, on his own. The suspended-One Show presenter looked a long way from making a comeback.

16. Penelope Keith claims she turns down work in the summer so she can garden.

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.

1. Rumours of a garden centre to be built at Buckingham Palace.

2. Spotted: Jim Broadbent at Almeida theatre watching Rope. Lisa Snowdon on the phone in Piccadilly. Alan Titchmarsh and Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen at B&Q launch. Spoke to Titch on working with B&Q. Wonder what BBC thinks? Titch is back at Gardeners’ World Live. He’s filming for BBC this summer. Might write a book about him.

3. Vinnie Jones from Celeb Big brother spends £2,000 a week on a gardener and other home helps.

4. look-alikes special Paul Pleydell: Shakespeare, Richard O’Brien, Bill Bailey, orc, Terry Nutkins.

Dan Thurlow: Neil Lennon, Prince Harry, Alex McLeish.

Jonathan Porritt: Michael McIntyre.

5. I was at the enjoyable GCA conference this week but they asked me not to blog about it. But I will mention massaging Andrew Evans’ shoulders from Ruxley Manor garden centre.

6. Was at London College of Garden Design first anniversary event at Regents Park College last week. Spoke to Annabel Downs, Mark Gregory, AFT, Andrew Wilson, Joanna Fortnam, Sam Martin etc. Theme for Chelsea-pizza ovens in gardens.  Oh yeah, and Stephen Lacey talking about standing as next RHS president on a ticket of buying an RHS yacht. LCGD exhibition 8-11 July at London Design Centre in Islington.

7. Crosswords cost five times as much for cryptics than general-£20 to £100.

8. Went to Wisley last week. Saw Jim Gardiner and Hayley Monckton. One bit that got cut out of my interview was that On the horizon are Robert Myers' rose garden, which runs down in terraces from the 1960s Bowes Lyon pavilion. Growers Harkness and Austin are advising on which roses to plant. Gardiner says the gardens, paid for by Witan Investments, will have much in place by next winter. They will include a structure of yew and Gardiner's beloved magnolia, and paths made from Bradstone stone, rather than Chelsea 2007-09 sponsor Marshalls'.
Gardiner says: "Why should the RHS be associated with Marshalls all the time? We have to support the landscape industry and we felt Bradstone was the most appropriate product for the design."

I’ve had 28 emails from Gary Dunlop this week. All interesting though.

9. A Christopher Lloyd exhibition opens at Garden Museum on 1 April. In October this column questioned Lloyd’s legacy. Was he over-rated?

Going to the Titchmarsh/Penelope Keith event next month at the museum.Unmissable.

10. Also been to Haskins and Blue Diamond in Spalding this week. Lots of people in the cafes. Do garden centres do catering better than they do the other stuff? The GCA conference scores suggested so.

11. Alys Fowler’s chickens are called Alice B Toklas and Gertrude. Her dog is called Isabel. Win a copy of her new book The Edible garden if you can tell me who Alice B Toklas is.

12. Best sellers in garden centres-steak, pie, fish and chips, fish, chicken, lamb, curry, lasagne, roast, scampi. Most profitable-pie, fish, chicken, lasagne, steak, sandwiches, fish and chips, sausages, burger, lamb, omelette.

13. Retail guru close the deal coach Alf Dunbar mantra: “Is there anything else you need today?” Tony Kendle from the Eden Project said next year’s Big Lunch on 19 July could involve the 4m people who said they wished they’d eaten as a community this year.

14. Duty log mental:

#Is this article and the majority of comments for real?

Is being 'toothless', unshaven' and/or 'cockney' some kind of crime? The gentleman concerned sounds like the hero of the episode.

You all need to think about Haiti and have a long hard look at yourselves.

#If you've never listened to Arlo Guthrie's 'Alice's Restaurant' re littering with your address intact please do!

#Mattew, a bit out of order in my opinion.

1. At Defra’s new year journalist reception on Tuesday I first talked to a couple of senior Defra public relations bods. They noted that I had blogged about their distaste for badgers after a similar event last summer. I smoothly said: “Nice to see I’m read.” They were less indiscreet this time and would not comment on how floods had ruined loads of Cumbrians’ lives because of Defra intransigence, choosing to change the subject to talk about Hezza and his garden.

2. A bit later I saw the Horse and Hound type who I accused of boring Defra minister Jim Fitzpatrick about horsebox legislation last year. I hid and she left to go to a prior en-neigh-gment. Fitz didn't show this year but Hilary Benn weirdly seems to relish well-oiled farming hacks asking him why he's at Defra when he doesn't like the countryside, is vegetarian etc. 

3. Legendary Guradin hack Simon Hoggart was there. He clocked my name tag and sniffed before taking more notes about the food on offer. Look out for “gvt waste” piece. His Christmas round robin letters book is a classic. He's not Simon Jenkins btw. They are different people, though a bit similar.

4. As well as British wine, there was fish. I said the writer of the film End of the Line (which portrays doomsday fishing stock scenarios) Charles Clover that joined up thinking on fish was required and the Government should be telling Jamie Oliver to start a campaign saying ‘eat less fish’. All TV chefs and nutritionists ram fish down your throat at all times. Hence no fish in the sea. No-one took any notice of my simplistic view.

5. Talking of wine, the Barclay brothers Daily Telegraph owners are going to make a Sark vintage, I heard. Then saw in the paper today. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/13/barclay-brothers-sark-wine

6. Spoke to Defra minister Huw Irranca-Davies on the issue of United Utilities over-filling the Thirlmere reservoir near Keswick in Cumbria and then not allowing any more water in during floods. He said something on it has landed on his desk. I said Keswick flooded five years ago, with the same problem, the water company wanting to keep the lake full in case of future drought, fingered as being to blame. He said he’d have a look. I’d used the line: “As a punter rather than a hack.” (I'm from Keswick). HID told a long story about an elderly Keswickian who had used plants on his doorstep to stem the worst of the flood and with his nephew had lifted his furniture onto blocks and taken the carpet up in a finger in the *** style King Canute gesture. Meanwhile a neighbour had simply locked the door when the flood came and checked into a hotel. This soggy tale suggested looking after yourself may be the best policy when the floods come again, probably in about two years judging by their  increasing frequency-1985, 2005, 2009.

8. APG secretary Brian Donohoe is organising a John Cushnie memorial edition of GQT to be held in the House of Commons. RHS is new sponsor. Stephen Bennett said, unprompted, he had my blog in his bag, ready to read on the hoof.

Twitter at mattapple1

Blog at Telegraph 

1. Happy New Year. Or HNY as I say to save time. 263 people have said Happy New Year to me so far this year. Is this about right? 453 said Merry Christmas. I said Merry Xmas to save time. And have a cool yule to be a t##t.

2. Xmas TV: Victoria Wood special: Duncan Preston: “My life seems completely grey, bleak and pointless.”
Julie Walters: “Sometimes it's God's way of getting you to enjoy Gardener's World.”
 
3. Look-alikes special.You do the matching.

Richard E Grant and James Alexander Sinclair

Hayley Monckton and Ali Bastian

Leigh Hunt and Corpse bride

Ben Fogle and Christian Jessen

4. Glee trade show for garden centres in September has a logo that is a tiny bit like new E4 US TV hit Glee. The title track of Glee is Journey’s Don’t stop believing. That little Joe McElderry sang on X Factor.

5. Sad to hear of the death of John Cushnie, the only Gardeners Question Time panellist with industry landscaping experience. He predicted in Daily Telegraph 2 January he would ask more gardeners to grow posh veg. There are no immediate plans to replace him at Gardeners’ Question Time. A tribute edition is on Radio 4 on 15 January at 3pm repeated on 17 January at 2pm.

6. Charlie Dimmock is to strip off and appear in full bloom at the Princess Theatre in a touring production of Calendar Girls.

The bra-less presenter, who found fame through BBC gardening show Groundforce, has been receiving acting tuition and vocal coaching in preparation for her stage debut.

She will play Celia, the more curvaceous member of the Women's Institute featured in the show.

It's a role previously played by Jerry Hall, and Kelly Brook now has the part in the West End production running at the Noel Coward Theatre.

In Torquay the production will run from July 5 to 10 and will form one of the linchpins of the venue's summer season.

Her fellow cast members will include Gemma Craven, Sue Holderness and former EastEnders stars Hannah Waterman and Letitia Dean as the women from the Rylstone and District WI who laid the foundations of an extraordinary charitable enterprise when they disrobed and posed naked for a racy calendar.

Tickets go on sale in mid January.

7. Ian Mcmillan-Yorkshire Post

I have a shelf full of chutney standing there like skittles in a bowling alley, and it'll probably last me for most of 2010, but the burning question is: "What on earth will I do now in garden centres?"
You see, despite my best efforts over the decades, I've never really enjoyed my many visits to garden centres. My lovely wife is a big fan
of gardening and, for her, a visit to a garden centre is the equivalent
of an art lover visiting the National Gallery or a train spotter catching a glimpse of something rare and steamy chugging through
Doncaster station.
It's bliss for her. She's in Garden Heaven, where the angels sit on water features and their harps are made of canes and twine. For me, on the other hand, it's not quite that exciting. My lovely wife looks at a plant. She doesn't like it. She looks at another plant which to me looks exactly like the previous plant but she declares this to be superior in every possible way.
It's her hobby so I don't mind but I always say, at this point, "I'm just off to look at the chutney" and I spend many happy minutes gazing at Farmhouse Chutney or Mango Chutney or Tomato and Cucumber Chutney. I take it from the shelf: like a version of a wine expert, I hold the jar up to the light and see the rays of the sun filtered through the chutney. I read the ingredients aloud and they sound like a little poem. Then, just to keep the economy going in a recession, I always buy some.

8. I have boring Facebook friends-all on about the cold, their cats and their babies. My baby is well wrapped up for the snow thankfully. Twitter is better. FisherTomlin Wondered where all the snowmen went? http://post.ly/HOaS

I also learnt compost worms don’t eat when bedding is below 3 degrees from Wiggly Wigglers.

9. Anna Pavord in the Independent mag says: “Websites and blogs have multiplied, fertilised by a curious anxiety about the natural world. But that world is not going to get more familiar by way of a computer screen.” She recommends getting out into the garden rather than wittering on about it.

10. Garden centre consultant Eve Tigwell quiz:

What kind of pie is traditionally eaten on Thanksgiving Day in America?

What is also known as a Love-Apple?

What kind of fruit is a Muscat? 

What is the alternative name for a Chinese Gooseberry?           

What fruit is the main ingredient of Eve’s Pudding?

What is a Huckleberry?

Which of these is not a vegetable?

Cabbage: Cucumber: Cauliflower

Which drink is flavoured with juniper berries?

A Savoy is a variety if which vegetable?

Which member of the onion family is said to repel vampires?

Answers

Pumpkin

Tomato

Grape

Kiwi Fruit

Apple

Blueberry

Cucumber

Gin

Cabbage

Garlic

1. Now on twitter at mattapple1

Best people following so far are Ben Fogle. The TV fop tweets: “Cor. Just chased four burglers [sic] from my garden while they were trying to break in to my house. Police everywhere.”

Alys Fowler tweets: “One-Armed Farmer Reveals The Most Over-Looked Secret That Grows You Mouth-Watering Organic Tomatoes http://gurlx.com/uei”

Ben Goldacre tweets: “I have been writing about this since 2000 and 3: nice to see govt and Daily Mail catch up tho http://bit.ly/7hgiwG”

Landscape man Matthew Wilson tweets: “To [sic] snowy Lincolnshire to film the first day of the second series of 'Landscape Man'. V exciting, if a little parky.”

Cleve West tweets: “Rained here during the night...ice skating anyone?”

Guerrilla gardener Richard Reynolds tweets: “More guerrilla Christmas tree decorating reported in the Daily Telegraph with a picture from Wimbledon Common. http://tinyurl.com/ybem8rv

I attempted to start a Rage Against the Machine style Christmas viral campaign to fill the media with pics of guerrilla garlanded (can you see what I did there) street trees. Very few of the gardening media tarts took any notice. Oh well, maybe a sleeper for next year.

2. This is some of my feedback from guerrilla garlanding requests: Huh, fat chance around here. A couple of years ago Weston Super Mare took down their tree because they couldn’t stop it being vandalized. Obviously to have done anything about the vandals would have infringed their human liberties so this was the only course open to the council. The preferable alternative of  stringing the little thugs up to the top of the tree as a substitute for the fairy could  be seen as politically  incorrect, however since the fairy is usually female (even in Weston)  such an action could be seen as a welcome blow for sexual equality. Please could you get a ruling from Harriet Harman on this.

Also... Why not go and decorate one yourselves, and film it? Make a great fun video, plus could go viral...

3. Monty Don has been hard at work listing what gardening gifts to buy. All men like a blade apparently. http://alturl.com/fuvf

4. Lookalikes: HTA's David Gwyther and 'my name is' Michael Caine.

5. http://alturl.com/ckbz

Some new stats on building over back gardens, a story that has been dead during the housebuilding recession.

6. http://alturl.com/95do

Sister mag Regen goes on about ministerial departments paying too much for plants.

7. Talking of politicians, Peter Mandelson said:  “If you ask me where in 15 or 20 years’ time I’d like to be, it will be probably on a farm somewhere close to the land, getting up early in the morning.  I want to be able to grow my own food.  Look after my own farm animals, worry about the weather and get the timing of my harvest right.”

8. And Michael Heseltine says he blames himself for explosion in the number of magpies there are in the UK now because of his 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act making it illegal to cull ‘nuisance birds’ without a licence. Parakeets are in for the reverse fate with new laws to allow their shooting.

9. Eden Project is organising another Big Lunch on 18.7.10. Maybe garden centres will cash in more this time as consultant John Connel suggested they might have in 2009, when one million had street parties to celebrate homegrown/local/community etc.

10. Kirstie Allsopp. A mole tells me her director kept repeating ‘more chat’ when filming Homemade Christmas. Kirstie says she was too tired to talk. She’d be nice really if not knackered, says my mole.

11. Diarmuid Gavin is on Celebrity Come Dine With Me Christmas Special on 22/12 C4 8.30pm with David Gest, Sherrie Hewson and Hannah Waterman. Daily Telegraph associate Tim Richardson asked where is he now in recent DT annual gardening review, naming DG as a ‘faller’ in his trends chart. Well, he will get more viewers for this than any gardening programme in 2009. Except Chelsea Flower Show, where DG is due to return in 2010.

12. Maxine Hardcastle claims in court she has been attached by former Playboy glamour model Louise Glover. http://alturl.com/tfv2. Maxine is the daughter of ‘19’ musician Paul Hardcastle, one of the two number one artists I have interviewed. The other is Kim Wilde. Where is she now? Merry Xmas everyone!

Latest from Daily Telegraph on climate change in Cumbria, garden gossip and reindeer's rights: http://alturl.com/q46t.

Lookalikes (and soundalikes): Garden Media Guild lifetime achievement winner Peter Beales and Garden Industry Manufacturers Association ex-president Peter Field.

From the press:

1. We’re in Private Eye ‘In the Back’ this week  - for the right reasons. We’ve been reporting that the University of  Warwick is closing Wellesbourne research station. HW quoted as blaming Defra for years of cuts to research funding, but saying Warwick was showing a complete disregard for a prime facility it was gifted at a knock down price. Investigative journalism at its finest.

2. “Tuta Absoluta sounds like an Austin Powers love interest, but it’s clearly going to be yet another source of heartbreak for the tomato grower.” From www.soilman. http://alturl.com/wxdp

3. Latest from Garden News Dec 8. Xmas trees are running short. Also, veg seed sales boom. It’s now 70 veg/30 ornamental. Dec 15. Poinsettia sales set to reach 4m.

4. Nick Herbert, Tory shadow environmental minister is after vegetarian Labour counterparts Hilary Benn and Jim Fitzpatrick by attacking meat-free Mondays. Are we meant I become part time vegetarians or vegans? And why single out meat? Asia’s paddy fields emit the same amount of methane as the livestock industry. It seems doubtful that a campaign for rice-free Tuesdays will be next (Independent). He will soon be in charge of the environment.

5. What’s it’s like to work at World Duty Free (Retail Week)

What is the world duty free ethos?

Relaxed intensity with a can-do attitude.

What sets you apart?

It’s a great place to work, has excellent employee engagement and we ork in partnership with all our key stakeholders.

How do you strive to retain your staff?

We live our company values-customers, passion, teamwork, respect.

6. Oliver Peyton (Telegraph) Looking after a garden is depressingly hard work but I’m very into gardening porn. My wife says that if anything arrives by post, she won’t accept it. I’m always making very expensive mistakes.

7. Alan Titchmarsh is ‘mid range (average appeal) according to the BBC. Kate Humble and Jimmy Doherty and the Hairy Bikers have top tier highly valued appeal, while Chris Packham is on his way up and worth investment says a list drawn up by an executive at BBC Knowledge, which makes documentaries and factual programmes.

8. Mephedrone is the new hot drug for clubbers. It’s a ‘plant food’ ‘and costs £10 a gram off the internet. You dance like a nutter and jabber like a fool apparently. http://alturl.com/jbd2. The weird thing is that mephedrone is not a plant food. In Britain, any substance sold for human consumption has to be licensed or subject to rigorous safety checks. So unscrupulous dealers market Mephedrone somewhat bizarrely as a plant fertiliser. In fact, Mephedrone (full chemical name: 4- Methylmethcathinone) is a stimulant described as 'two molecular tweaks away' from pure ecstasy.  'It is never used in any products that people would use to fertilise plants,' said a spokesman for the European Fertiliser Manufacturers' Association. In other words, you might as well give your plants cocaine or heroin as Mephedrone. Nevertheless, words such as 'plant food' and 'plant snacks' are used in all the websites selling Mephedrone. We found at least 30 websites in a few minutes.

 9. Christmas fun: http://www.bicton.ac.uk/christmas09.html

10. Rare praise: Re: your blog 'Climate change in Cumbria; annual gong show; reindeers' rights' on Telegraph website. I am dismayed to hear that '...I'm worried though because I've been told by fellow hacks that what I write is indiscreet' - Please ignore the hacks and continue writing your blogs (both DT and Hort Week) as all at www.qualitygardentools.com are readers. What would have happened in Nixon's America if Bernstein & Woodward of the Washington Post had decided to be discreet when 'Deep Throat' told them about Watergate?

Maybe the gardening world is not quite the same, but we all enjoy your blogs anyway. There is far too much boring 'my favourite hobby is eating baked beans' journalism in the horticultural world and too many hacks just re-hashing old articles (their own and other peoples) - so keep up the good work and ignore the others!

12. The RHS has apologised to members after a leaflet the gardening charity issued drew complaints because it shows a Muscari grape hyacinth instead of native bluebells and states that cowslips are a woodland flower rather than a meadow plant. RHS Hyde Hall in Essex issued 40,000 leaflets asking for donations to plant 35,000 trees costing £100,000 at the site over the next seven years. But the leaflet had two “basic” errors of gardening knowledge. RHS head of press Lynn Beddoe said: “We are very obviously aware of the mistakes. They are not something the RHS takes lightly because we pride ourselves on knowing our plants. The head of development was very apologetic. This was down to a printing process error with a stock shot not thoroughly proofed. We only received a handful of letters pointing out the errors. We apologised and explained.”

Garden Media Guild awards last week.  This picture speaks 1,000 words.

1. Geoff Whiten is new GMG chairman. Each person on stage got a very literal song to accompany them, eg outgoing chair Valerie McBride-Munro had 'Valerie' by Amy Winehouse. Whiten got 'Hi Ho Silver Lining'. Because he has a grey beard? He's a silverback? He often wins silver at Chelsea?

2. Whiten has asked GMG committee member Martyn Cox to set some long overdue judging standards for next year.

3. Coxy was seen late at night arm wrestling Gardener's World staff in the Master Gunner pub near the venue after the awards. He was winning. No-one went to the official after 'party' event. I had to leave early to babysit. But not before...

4. James Wong spoke to me in the Master Gunner. A nice guy. Won an award for his Grow Your Own Drugs. I said he'd won Cox's much talked about alternative awards most fanciable male because my colleague Magda Ibrahim had voted multiply. Said we'd checked his ethnobotany credentials and they stood up, disappointingly. Wong looked a little bemused.

5. The GMG awards are now run by a little-known magazine. Rather like Rodney Bewes running the Oscars. Or more like a Brookside extra running the Welsh Baftas.

6. When James Alexander-Sinclair won blog of the year he expounded the virtues of blogging as the way ahead. Amateur Gardening's Tim Rumball exclaimed loudly-'bollocks'. JAS does make most of his cash from picture-led features in national gardening mags.

7. Alys Fowler said I always wear bad shoes. I took one off and showed her the vegetarian shoe label. Alys was fishing for compliments about her secondhand orange suede cowboy jacket. Got none from me, other than 'it smells of death'. Mark Gregory said I was chatting her up. Peter Dawson was in checks. At least he didn't have his Mickey Mouse sweatshirt on.

8. Kris Collins won trade writer of the year for a piece in HW. His baby is due next week too.

9. Most popular winners-Wong, Mark Diacono from River Cottage, Wesley Kerr.

10. Most shocking-Carol Warters for a PR stunt on world leaders getting sent some seed packets. Jackie Bennett -an unlikely best columnist. Ken Crowther, not bad sex award but best local radio. The clip played: Essex lady. "I've got a terrible mole problem. They dig up my lawn and I've tried everything blah blah blah." Ken: "They are a difficult problem. There's not much you can do." If this was the best bit then it begs the question...

11. Another radio clip-"What should I plant at this time of year?" Answer: "Look in a seed catalogue or your local garden centre." Thanks. Does gardening work on radio?

12. Lose friends and alienate award. http://alturl.com/cbbw. Victoria's Backyard blog said I should have won an award and that papers used my story, only The Independent didn't, or something. I said the Indie is too skint to pay for it's own stories or for writers to write them, thinking Victoria was a standard gardening blogger who didn't know about this stuff. Seems she is night editor for the Independent. Oops.

13. Newsround's John Craven was there and took a gong. For a piece on bees. Or beez as he calls them-his teeth don't fit. I asked Craven if I could present the new Kid's Countryfile.

14. Alan Titchmarsh (on stage to collect best young garden hack), Joe Swift (presenter Andy McIndoe (who gave me the lowdown on the give her an ironing board for xmas story) made a gag about Patch Magic and GroSure for baldness), Alys Fowler, Toby Buckland (won green award for TV peat piece in which you could see producers operating strings attached to Buckland's anorak hood), Eric Robson (a Cumbrian hero)-they were all there. but no Carol Klein, who usually is good fun. The afternoon event climaxed with Peter Beales winning a lifetime acheivement award and was presented with a David Austin bouquet.

15. Seriously, I've been asked to give input on how to improve the awards. This is what I told the organisers.

3. The awards should not be run by a magazine. This year it was like Rodney Bewes running the Oscars. Or an extra from Brookside running the Welsh Baftas. Stop me if you think you've heard this one before.

5. Supporting material was not sent to judges. So if a story reaches national/international prominence and the entrant shows this, it should be considered. The context of a piece needs to be considered by judges, especially if the judges don’t know the context and influence a piece has, as they don’t seem to.

This year's judges: But who judged what?

Matthew Appleby alternative gardening awards 2009/10-bests and worsts. I wasn’t going to bother but someone (ie one person) asked me if I was going to after last year’s piece. So here goes.

1. News story of the year-Chelsea Flower Show downturn-hits zeitgeist of recession in City.

2. Worst news story of the year-Alan Titchmarsh Wikipedia site says he is writing a guide to the Karma Sutra.

3. TV show of the year-None. This was the year gardening took a year off TV. Everyone took a year off.

4. Newcomer of the year. TV-wise -no-one. Expect better in 2010. Matthew Wilson, Monty Don, Alys Fowler new series. Oh yeah, newcomer-see above William Appleby.

5. TV presenter of the year-Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (Landshare, GYO, popular). 2^nd-Nigel Slater (BBC1, allotments, nice).

5 1/2. Lookalikes-Adam Frost and Ronnie O'Sullivan.

6. Departure of the year. Inga Grimsey (and 80 RHS staff). Fred Whitsey. Hurrans garden centres.

7. Comeback of the year-Rosemary Edwards rescuing Gardener’s World. Nicholas Marshall at Wyevale garden centres.

8. Worst TV of the year. Gardener’s World what’s hot and what’s not. Funniest TV: Alys Fowler making a guinea pig hutch on GW.

9. Party of the year-Tapas seven RHS lunch for journalists who wrote only nice things this year. Most sociable people-Tim Edwards, Andrew Richardson, Andy McIndoe, Carol Paris.

10. Disappointment of the year-Future Gardens. And the gardening hacks (ie most of them) who bigged it up without question.

And the next top 10. Ok 11.

1. Issue of the year-food security
2. Non-issue of the year. GM/peat-both never took off
3. Worst columnist-Ben Fogle's Sunday Telegraph country diary. Fogle typically will write wrote how roadkill is a terrible thing for the countryside when of course it shows healthy animal populations. Zoe Williams – I’m not scared of vegetables apart from celeriac. Basil is alive. 'If we were prepared to eat goat's milk by the 1940s, you have to ask, did we really need to have that huge war?' http://alturl.com/big5
4. Book of the year-The Alternative Kitchen Garden, Emma Cooper.
5. Bad sex literary prize-Radio Essex gardening presenter Ken Crowther’s ‘Two Weeks in Nice’ Apprentice gardeners Jack and Nick are on their first holiday away from their parents. They experience the gastronomic, horticultural and feminine delights of St Tropez and Nice.
6. Strop of the year. GW producer for having nickname revealed. BBC Chelsea presenter for having salary revealed. National Trust person on peat-free. Trade body person on trade show. Dozens by me. Bridges built now though.
7. Event of the year-Chelsea, Glee. Both unexpectedly good.
8. Best columnist. Seabrook.
9. New talent-me at Daily Telegraph.
10. Industry fun figure-Monty Don “I cry all the time, most recently when I realised the housemartins had gone away”. London Evening Standard's Pattie Barron announced a fab new collaboration with the RHS with a long PR quote from Inga Grimsey…on the day Inga resigned. Also talked about her 'London loam'. Lives in Brighton.
11. Lifetime achievement – Jim McColl

This is from Telegraph. Also on Twitter now.

1. Went to All-Party Gardening & Horticulture Group annual reception in Parliament last night.

Talked to Alan Titchmarsh. He told me: “I’m doing some gardening programmes for the BBC early next year that will be transmitted in a year’s time. But I’m not going to be doing Gardener’s World. There’s no truth in the rumours.” The BBC has delayed the announcement until the end of this week. Titch later embraced Tommy Walsh. A Groundforce reunion? Leads me to think where are they now-Tommy-Dansand promos and white van man insurance ads. Matt James-lecturer in Falmouth. Charlie Dimmock-Meridian TV slots, Portugese holiday home and retirement home promos. I could go on.

2. Titch’s two top gags, both introduced by “I was on my way to a literary festival in Yorkshire. [AT asking directions] Do you know Bradford turnoff? Local cloth cap: I should do, I married her.

In Huddersfield to a man in pub. Is Huddersfield twinned with anywhere? No, but I think it’s got a suicide pact with Ilkley. A version of the late comedian Linda Smith’s old gag on Erith and Dagenham.

 

3. Talking of BBC, backlash against Tree O’Clock. Beeb has spent £96,000 on whips for the world record planting attempt on 5 December promoted by Kate Humble on Autumnwatch. Anti-BBC papers such as Mail and Telegraph loved the tale. TaxPayers’ Alliance got angry about the waste of the cash, plus the £57,500 spent on Dig In seeds given out to TV watching gardeners this summer. But the comments on the web stories tended to say BBc money is better spent on trees than Jonathon Woss (yes Mail readers wrote Woss).

4. Back at Parliament, Royal National Rose Society says Butterfly World/Future Gardens nicked their carpark and wouldn’t give people directions to the RNRS garden, which attracted 8,500 visitors this year-they suggest that was more than FG.

5. No sign of under-fire MPs at APPHG such as regular attendees Andrew Dismore, who claimed a second home five miles from his constituency and Christopher Fraser, who is ‘stepping down’ at the next election. A Scottish hack rang me the other day to ask me what happened to former APGGH chair David Marshall. Marshall resigned as an MP and went to NZ after getting depression following exposure of employment of his family when an MP.

6. Quote of the week: “If gardening makes him so angry all the time, maybe he should get another hobby.” Who about whom?

7. Next best quote (how not to write from the Spectator): “The artful disposition of tulips in a garden is often problematic, anyway, since it can be difficult to make ramrod-straight flowering stems look at home in a lax setting, but it becomes downright impossible if the tulips that do survive to flower again are so random in their colours.”

8. Lia Leendertz upped her game last week on Guardian website possibly stung into action by criticism of the boring piece she wrote last week in Guardian mag. Former HW colleague Lia wrote about using human manure on the garden. What bodily emission or fluid next? Who will go there?

9. Talking to someone at APHG event about Countryfile. Apparently BBC is doing a  kids’ version. They suggested it could be called: a – Kidsfile. B. Childrenfile. C. Paedofile.

10. I’m starting an easy guide to journalism. I think there is a need. Part one-avoid cliché (see number six-ramrod straight is hackneyed and tiresome for readers). Part two: defamation-malicious and false statements. Often end up in court cases. Part three: Plagiarism: stealing stories. Part four: Copyright infringement. Using material without consent. More next time.

11. Talked to Nicholas Marshall of Wyevale at APHGG event for the first time in a while - building bridges (that’s my new thing since parents got flooded out in Cumbria). Marshall said Hilary Benn going on about tree cover in UK doubling since 1919 was not so good because most of the extra 5 per cent was conifer plantations. Not bad for carbon-bad for biodiversity though.

12. Spoke to GIMA’s Neil Gow at APHGG. He said I had it in for the garden centre industry. A brave lone voice. Incidentally, Gow says his Xmas tree prices are going down this year. Most are going up by £5 because of lack of imports cos of euro. It’s in the papers.

13. Also spoke to Myles Bremner of Garden Organic about redundancies at the charity. He said they were in the admin dept. Just in time for Xmas etc. Webbs garden centre has taken over the retail side. Admin is being outsourced. Bremner kept doing that irritating thing that they teach in media training – asking you what you think when you ask them a question.

14. Talked to landscaper Paul Cowell at APHG. Cowell was on TV last week telling viewers that rogue traders were rife in landscaping and needed to be dealt with. I wrote the story for HW. A comment on our website: “Here is the OFT link that covers this in a little more detail and brings in into prospective. http://www.oft.gov.uk/news/press/2009/134-09 Tarmacing and paving had \(954), nearly a third of the complaints. I do however have to question if these should all be labelled as landscapers?"

Most landscapers I speak to say they are doing more and more hard landscaping. Any views? Other than it’s not us. Or obfuscation.

15. Went to a book launch of  at Potterton Books in Sloane Square area last week. Met Rob Cassy, who is not just writing a novel, but a trilogy! Also went to Stewarts garden centre in Christchurch. Built bridges with Martin Stewart who was tending his own reindeer. And to New Forest Garden Plants in Hants. Alpine wars, the Jekka effect, the euro-it was all there.

16. I was going to run my popular garden awards this month but Martyn Cox has got in first. Thankfully I have won many nominations.

Here's the latest. Check out Telegraph Gardening for my latest. No frills this week.

1. Garden writers have had a slow week. In The Times, Stephen Anderton's piece on conifers comes two months after everyone else wrote theirs during National Conifer Week. And Alice Bowe continues her idiot's guide to gardening. In the Guardian, Lia Leendertz runs through some stuff to do in the garden if you have run out of ideas of stuff to do. How about stay in instead and write a garden page filler piece? This weekend I read a recommendation of the book New Trees by Grimshaw and Bayton, which Kew Publishing launched six months ago. Finally, Helen Yemm is headlined ‘my allotment mayhem.' Turns out it's on how she's cleaned her shed.

2. Went to Soil Association conference last week hoping to hear president Monty Don say something silly. The corduroyed one was disappointingly balanced but the view of Defra chief scientist Dr Bob Watson entertained. He ran through a load of graphs showing Doomsday scenarios worldwide because of global warming. Someone from the floor (not Alys Fowler who was with a doppelganger with a teacosy on her head) said Dr Bob was doing a Dr Nutt by coming out with an extreme view that was far from the Government's more conservative position. Dr Bob disagreed and said his views were the same as Government chief scientist Dr John Beddington. Where things did kick off was when Dr Bob said the Government was still looking into GM. Boos and hisses rang round. The afternoon session before Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser chatted in the evening sesh to Guradina hack Felicity Lawrence was mostly anti-GM. I liked the hissing when Dr Bob from Defra mentioned GM. Interestingly to me no one talked at all about growers-it was all about community gardens or starving Africans. Tiny or global. Confused on Soil Assoc's role. Are they Oxfam? An allotment society? Maybe should focus on supporting UK organic growers?

3. Titchmarsh - The announcement about his new BBC programme has been put back until December say the BBC. Was to be last week. This is probably because the story has already been out there-Mail says he's back on Gardener's World, HW says BBC/Titch's agent says he not. I'll ask Titch next week at All-Party event.

4. Ex Gardenlife publisher Seven was apparently one of those who went for the contract publishing job to do Britain's biggest circulation gardening mag recently. Haymarket retained the Beautiful Gardens contract, which involves 4m mags sent by Tillington group garden centres to households.

5. Email from Ben Webster. "I am the new environment editor for The Times and I get copies of Horticulture Week which you send to Lewis Smith, who has now left The Times. I do not have time to read your magazine so please stop sending it." Webby writes almost exclusively on climate change but does hack on food waste, beekeeping, supermarkets, etc. Maybe he should find a bit more time to do his research. We've had several stories in the Times this year-before Webby arrived.

6. James Alexander Sinclair emailed the other day to say he was part of the RHS tapas seven, who lunched recently to celebrate the autumn. James asked me to write a piece on biscuits for him. I told JAS that bourbons are vegan and all the world's custard creams come from Carlisle, but I would have to think hard before I could get a whole column out of it.

But Garden News columnist Phil McCann ("always has something interesting to say") has got in first!

Phil says biscuits are close to his heart and name-checked David Cameron's taste for oatcakes (not a biscuit) and Nick Clegg's like of Rich Tea (no-one's fave). Phil continues: "But in time-honoured fashion, the whole biccy chat got me thinking 9and reaching for the biscuit barrel!)

He carries on the say gardeners like growing different things just as biscuit lovers like eating different biscuits. Alpine lovers like Rich tea, herbaceous lovers like Crinkle Creams, fruit growers like garibaldi and veg growers like digestives. The "bedding brigade" like Jammie dodgers. With another 150 words to go, Phil starts listing other biscuits he likes as he...scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

7. Ten horticulture stories from this year:

1.Alan Titchmarsh Wikipedia claim to be writing AT's guide to the Kama Sutra

2.RHS chief Inga Grimsey resigns

3.RHS to rid itself of 10 per cent of workforce etc

4.Chelsea Flower Show loses one third of show garden due to recession-led sponsorship crisis. James May to show plasticine garden at Chelsea-Chelsea is quite fertile for stories. Hot pants to pot plants was my best from 2008-about Aussie stripper turned garden designer Jamie Durie. This year Flemings burnt down so the Aussies didn't come over.

5. Buckingham Palace visit with head gardener Mark Lane garden ahead of first guided tours

6.New Gardener's World garden in Birmingham

7.Future Gardens to happen. Future Gardens goes pear-shaped

8.Golf courses membership fall off in recession

9.Revamped Gardener's World hit by viewer backlash

10. 10 Downing St-Sarah Brown copies Michelle Obama

8. Former World Bank chief economist Lord Stern has suggested people give up meat to save the planet - two-thirds of the world's agricultural land is given over to livestock. Methane from livestock is the clear cause of global warming. Putting land over from livestock to crop growing is an unanswerable way to solve food shortages and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Meat causes 18 per cent of global carbon emissions. But the NFU thinks different. President Peter Kendal comes up with bad science-"Focussing on a single issue as way of saving the planet is extremely irresponsible and likely to be counterproductive. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from livestock in the UK by a contraction of the industry, in order to reduce output and livestock numbers, would simply ‘export' our emissions to other countries. This could also lead to an increase in the amount of UK food which we would be forced to import. I have always said that farmers and growers see themselves as part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem."

This leads me to ask: Why are all TV chefs meat-fiends? And why are all celeb gardeners organic?

9. Coincidences: Wrote about Wicker Man starring Edward Woodward on latest Daily Telegraph column. Sadly Woodward died the next week. Also wrote a piece on poinsettia for HW a couple of weeks ago ahead of the annual newspaper pic of someone standing in a glasshouse among thousands of the Xmas potplant. On the way to Southern Growers reading Metro the story appeared before my eyes. Except this year it featured wasps used to kill whitefly on poinsettia. The third coincidence is I bumped into an old BBC contact at Cabe Space's launch of its new Grey to Green campaign at the London College of Printing last week. She told me she is now working on promotions, which I wouldn't like. Dig In being one. I still don't get Dig In. The BBC sends seeds to Gardeners' World viewers, who already know how to garden and have their own seeds. The campaign also goes out to BBC kids telly watchers. Who would rather have a young plant-most beginners fail with seeds. The BBC type asked me if I was the one who had sold my Dig In seeds on Ebay. Now there's a thought. The last coincidence, if you've got this far, is that Paul Downer from Oak View Landscapes appeared on BBC news on 14 November talking about Office of Fair Trading complaints being up about rogue traders. I wrote a warmly received piece on this issue on 30 November after speaking to BBC Rogue Traders' Mitch Westwood. Another coincidence is both of these high profile examples to the industry backed trade bodies as a way of upholding standards. They also said recession was to blame for dodgy landscapers setting up to make a quick buck.

10. At the Cabe Space event Dan Pearson came over and was charming as ever. He said he tried to get a community allotment thing going but couldn't raise the interest. I said Alys Fowler had advertised on Facebook for punters for her Homegrown Life TV project (BBC2 January 11 8pm). Dan sadly said he hadn't been on TV since 1999 and that people forget. Also met Chris Baines at Cabe event. He said ex-Afghanistan serving former soldiers should take up gardening skills to green eco towns. Then the fire alarm went off and we all wandered out into Elephant and Castle to try and find the way home.

Dan will be signing his book Spirit at Petersham Nurseries, London - 10am, 21 November

Kew Gardens, 4 - 8pm 12 December and Toppings Books, Bath 6 - 8 pm 17 December.

Camels are bringing the Christ back into Christmas say Joseph’s Amazing Camels, who are supplying Trelawney garden centre with three dromedaries (one hump-from North Africa/Middle East). It’s down to recession-back to basics trad xmas etc. Meanwhile, please see latest Telegraph blog.

Latest fan-blogger 'The Fat Gardener' mentioned blog in a recent posting as one of his favourites. Also

Recent Rogue Traders interview with BBC landscaping expert Mitch Westwood produced some comment.

1. The Federal Trade Commission has a stern warning for UK garden retail industry businesses secretly using bloggers and others in social media to endorse products and services:  we're coming after you

In a move that has generated a backlash as big as the blogosphere itself, the agency put the word out on the street that beginning December 1, it will be looking to haul into court the most flagrant users of cloaked endorsers.

Indeed, even a blogger who accepts something a simple as a free sample from a company will be considered a violator, and the company, culpable, unless that relationship is made clear.

"Social media is here to stay, and we have enough respect for advertising on the Internet and the important role of the blogosphere as a marketplace for public opinion to hold it to the same standard we apply to advertising in any other medium," says Mary K. Engle, director, FTC Division of Advertising Practices.

2. Nigel Slater in Observer-A recent trip to one of the Royal Horticultural Shows at Vincent Square brought platefuls of pears etc…. What is this show? Is it the Royal Horticultural Society show? Slater should know what its called-he writes regularly for RHS mag The Garden.

3. Alice Bowe in The Times. ‘Lazy gardener tips’- number four: Build raised beds. Also-“digging can do more harm than good”…later “dig over soil in the autumn”.

4. Nicky Haslam (Observer) How do you know when something or someone is common? It’s nothing to do with some Nancy Mitford-esque horror of someone putting their knife on the plate. It’s those little clichés that make you cringe, like someone saying: “My garden’s got its own microclimate.”

5. Stephen Fry: When asked by a careers officer if what he wanted to do. “I want to be a careers officer.” Reminds me of the people who say their careers officer mocked them for wanting to be a gardener/told them they were only fit to be a gardener-ie most gardeners.

6. Twitter update- Amy Winehouse: watch my babygyal Dionne Bromfield on the Alan Titchmarsh Show 3pm-4pm on ITV. Then buy the album again!x

7. Lookalikes: Les Dennis and Mark Thatcher. Went to No.10 garden this year. Nicer than when Mark was there. Les has no conenction with gardening other than being led up the garden path in Extras.

8. Former ITV Studios executives Mark Wells and Glen Middelham have secured the first commission from their old employer for their new indie Rain, teaming up with Spun Gold to produce a country walks series with Alan Titchmarsh.

The 3 x 60-minute Alan Titchmarsh Walks Of Fame is a primetime series set to debut on ITV1 next spring, and was commissioned by Diana Howie and director of factual and daytime Alison Sharman.

Each episode will see Titchmarsh meet with a well-known celebrity, who nominates a 5-mile walk somewhere in Britain that has personal significance for them.

Titchmarsh will then accompany the celebrity on that walk, asking questions about their career and life along the way.

I reported on Titchmarsh’s possible return to BBC Gardener’s World this week and note twitters, bloggers etc have picked up on the story. Thanks for using it, esp those who said where they got it from.

Eg: Guardian “passnotes” 9 Nov, which reported my story adding amusingly “: Do say: "You can present anything you like, Mr Titchmarsh, as long as you do it on the BBC." Don't say: "Welcome back, 'Suralan'. What happened to your beard?"

9. Most stupid things I’ve done this year-professionally: Most of them I have never heard the last of or never heard from again: Left Wyevale long service event early to catch a plane-Wyevale haven’t talked to me since. Published Chelsea Flower Show presenters’ wages and compared them to 2008. Wrote down Gardener’s World producers’ nickname. Called an industry blogger a clown. Wrote indiscreetly about my allotment in “Liz Jones fashion” according to Telegraph gardening editor. Told Evening Standard their production staff are idle. Wrote about the fun people had at awards evenings-some people said that stuff should stay within four walls and are on non-speakers. Wrote a piece saying RHS needed cash in bank in case Chelsea hit by terrorists. Wrote a piece saying one trade association was losing influence.

10. This week-Government working on peat. They have a meeting on Weds 11 Nov at RHS Horticulture Halls. The industry say we can go to report. Defra say we can’t. Umm. Defra likely to push peat reduction targets onto consumer and away from grower. Off to Southern Growers this week and to Soil Association annual conference-looking forward to chair Monty Don’s speech.