Small Town Gardens

Small Town Gardens – Andover garden

This photo shows the final planting up of the back garden of a modern town house in Andover, designed by Andrew Fisher Tomlin. This garden was part of Small Town Gardens, series 3, transmitted 2003 on BBC 2 at 8pm. The waterfall in this garden worked brilliantly, making the most of the sloping garden with the change in levels. I seem to remember that we filmed the final scenes at night with the pond lit up with floating candles etc.

The presenter was James Alexander Sinclair. I was the series producer. It was a great series to work on, the team of designers transformed some dull and boring gardens into some fantastic outdoor spaces.

Vanessa Jackson

Small Town Gardens, Dartmouth

This article is from Garden Living magazine, Spring 2004. It features a very steep garden in Dartmouth, Devon, which was redesigned by garden designer, Mary Reynolds, as part of the third and final series of Small Town Gardens. The series was presented by James Alexander Sinclair. I was the series producer, and really enjoyed making this series. Paul Vanezis was the producer/director of this episode.

The garden was incredibly steep, and difficult to access, and it proved a real challenge to get the materials in and out. I remember that there was some friction between the contributors and the garden makeover team – which led to some interesting times on and off screen! It was a beautiful, and very natural looking garden when finished.

Vanessa Jackson

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’ 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