GARDENING TIME

Howard Drury

Boxtree Ltd, 1988

The Gardening Time programmes was started in1972 as a weekly feature and since then has continued to be produced 52 weeks of the year.

The garden is situated in a Birmingham park in the suburb of Kings Health. The first two presenters of the programme, Cyril Fletcher and the late Bob Price, created from a piece of waste ground a superb garden of just over one-third of an acre which contained a rockery, waterfall and pool, island beds, paved areas, a small vegetable garden and the typical 8 X 20 greenhouse.

In 1983, the City of Birmingham Parks and Amenities Department gave permission to extend the garden to 7 acres. Work began on a adjacent site and to date we have created over 1 and a half acres of new gardens with different styles of landscape. There is also an extended vegetable garden with organic and non-organic trial bed areas, a large herb garden, and trial beds for roses, dahlias, chrysanthemums ad bedding plants – all propagated from three new greenhouses.

The four expert presenters of the Gardening Time programme are Author Billitt (fruit and vegetables), Geoff Amos (all-round gardening, especially bedding plants), Jock Davidson (house plants) and Howard Drury (alpines, conifers, heathers, shrubs) who is also the programme’s Horticultural Adviser.

The programme spans the entire year and these accompanying books show how, by doing the right things at the right time, anybody can become a successful amateur gardener.

The book has pictorial cover boards and is in very good condition.