Question Time: Garden Marriages, Retired Gardeners, and Bent Cucumbers

This week, James and Joe tackle the big questions: Do TV gardeners ever actually retire, or are they just doomed to keep trundling on forever? We dive into the absurdity of professional aging, campaign for Dame Carol Klein, and address the existential crisis of a "bent" cucumber. Plus, we offer some much-needed relationship counseling for a couple caught between a wildlife meadow and minimalist paving.

In this episode:

• The Retirement Myth: Why self-employed creatives—and TV gardeners—don't "retire" in the conventional sense.

• The Campaign for Carol: Why it’s high time for Dame Carol Klein.

• Rebel Plants: James and Joe name their favorite "free-spirited" plants that refuse to stay where they’re put (spoiler: it involves Seseli and Foxgloves).

• The Cucumber Straightener: A Victorian relic or a show-stopper? We weigh in on the "polite society" of show bench vegetables.

• Relationship Counseling: How to manage a garden when your partner wants a concrete jungle and you want a wild meadow.

  This episode is sponsored by Kress, leaders in robotic lawnmowing and battery landscaping tools. Learn more here: https://www.kress.com/en-gb/

  About our hosts

  James Alexander-Sinclair is a garden designer, writer and broadcaster. He is an RHS Vice-President and was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for outstanding contribution to horticulture in 2022. He is the RHS Ambassador for Garden Design and a Fellow of the Society of Garden Designers.

  Joe Swift is a familiar face on television as a presenter of BBC TV’s Gardeners’ World and other gardening programmes. He is a garden designer, broadcaster, writer and design director of Modular.

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