Annie Guilfoyle – What Was Pebble Mill?

Small Town Gardens article

Garden Design Journal, Feb 2005

Copryright resides with the original holders, no reproduction without permission.

This article appeared in the Garden Design Journal in February 2005, and considers the question of whether television gardening has trivialised garden design. Bella D’Arcy argues ‘yes’, I argue ‘no’, and Matt James sits on the fence, with a ‘maybe’.

There was a spate of garden design related programmes in the late 1990s and early 2000s, led by Ground Force and HomeFront in the Garden. I was lucky enough to be the series producer of two series of Small Town Gardens, a design show which was a delight to work on!

Small Town Gardens series 2 – Vanessa Jackson

These stills are from the 2002, second series of ‘Small Town Gardens’. The first series was produced in London, but series 2 and 3 were produced by me at Pebble Mill. Series one was presented by Rachel de Thame, series two by Joe Swift, and series three by James Alexander Sinclair.

The top still is of presenter Joe Swift with garden designer Annie Guilfoyle, explaining the inspiration for the small front garden in Fowey, Cornwall, she was designing for the series.

The second still is of an inspiration trip for garden designer, Andy Sturgeon, with one of the programme’s contributor s and presenter Joe Swift. The garden Andy was designing was a small garden in East Sheen, London – right underneath the Heathrow flight path!

It was a great production team, and a lovely series to make!

Small Town Gardens

‘Small Town Gardens’ was a garden design series which ran for three series, from 2001-3. The first series was produced by London and presented by Rachel De Thame, the programme was then handed over to BBC Birmingham. The second and third series were produced at Pebble Mill.

I really enjoyed being the series producer, they were great series to work on. The producer/directors included Mark Scott, Kate Dillon & Paul Vanezis. Sarah Wilkin, and Emily Rusted were researchers, Sarah Costigan and Joanne Gray were PAs.

The second series was presented by garden designer Joe Swift, with the final series presented by James Alexander Sinclair. The premise of the show was to re-design small urban gardens, employing professional garden designers, taking them and the garden owners on inspirational visits, and shopping trips.

The first photo is of Joe Swift with garden designer Annie Guilfoyle, who designed a garden in Brighton for the series.

The second photo shows garden designer Andy Sturgeon with one of the contributors and Joe Swift. The garden Andy designed was in East Sheen, in West London. Both photos date from 2002.

The series went out on BBC 2 at 8pm on Friday nights in autumn 2002.

Vanessa Jackson