Green fingers and sore thumbs: Gardening and DIY
Part 1
Phil Taylor
Many people in the UK have green fingers - have you ever noticed? If not,
don't worry - you can't see them! "To have green fingers" means
to love gardening and anything related to growing plants. Gardening seems
to be in the blood of British people, but it has not always been a hobby
for everyone: it used to be a pastime for richer people who had a lot
of land. Then, thanks partly to a BBC TV show called Gardener's World,
from the 1970s gardening suddenly became a lot more popular with everyone.
In the 1990s gardening TV shows also exploded in popularity: Ground Force
was the first "garden makeover" show, where a team come to someone's
garden and transform it in only 2 days. There has been a lot of gardening
inspiration in the UK, which means that even people with small gardens
or tiny city balconies now spend a lot of time and money making them beautiful.
Even if you are just visiting the UK for a short time, you can enjoy British
garden culture in many ways.
The first is to visit the shops that British people use. For basic garden
needs, most people shop at one of the large chain DIY stores such as Homebase
or B&Q, which usually have an
extensive garden section. However, although these are great, cheap places
to buy garden furniture, soil, plant food and other supplies, the flowers
and plants are not usually of such good quality. A better bet is to visit
a "garden centre" or "nursery". A garden centre is
often quite large, and stocks all kinds of garden supplies as well as
plants - there are some large garden centre chains such as Notcutts
and Wyevale which often have a restaurant
too. A "nursery" tends to specialise more in flowers and plants,
and usually grows its own.
In London too there are some very special places where you could spend
a few hours walking around just enjoying the scenery, even if you think
that visiting a garden centre is not a typical sightseeing activity! Probably
the best place for this is Clifton Nurseries
(in W9, near Warwick Avenue station on the Bakerloo line).
This is London's oldest garden centre, dating from 1851, and it supplies
many famous businesses and people around the city. It's situated in the
middle of Little Venice, an expensive area of large houses, cafes, historic
pubs and canals filled with colourful boats. Walking into the centre feels
like stepping back in time - you are suddenly away from the city and in
a peaceful, romantic walled garden full of high quality plants, flowers
and trees and well as hand-made furniture, accessories and antique pots.
Clifton also sells smaller items such as books and ornaments which would
make ideal souvenirs, and there's a recently opened cafe- you are even
allowed to walk around the centre with your coffee or tea! Elsewhere in
London, try Camden Garden Centre (St
Pancras Way, NW1) or Chelsea Gardener
(just off the Kings Road, SW3).
As well as garden shops and centres, Britain is home to many public gardens
which are great places to visit all year round. Some are very large, and
feel more like parks. Maybe the most famous and spectacular is Kew
Gardens (now a World Heritage site) where you can see plants
from all around the world as well as some amazing buildings; many stately
homes have beautiful gardens and Britain even has a gardening charity,
the Royal Horticultural Society, which
owns four spectacular public gardens in Yorkshire, Essex, Devon and Surrey.
It's not only public gardens that are open to view - you can actually
visit many private gardens around the country at certain times of the
year. Some towns and villages run special events where volunteers open
their gardens to the public and there is a national event called the National
Gardens Scheme where hundreds of gardens all over the country are opened
to the public for a small charge (the money goes to charity). Schemes
like this are a great opportunity to see real British gardens and maybe
practice your English while speaking to the owners!
Green fingers and sore thumbs: Gardening and DIY Part 2
DIY (Do It Yourself) is another pastime which has sky-rocketed in popularity
in the UK over the past few decades. DIY means making things, repairing
things or painting and decorating your house by yourself, rather than
paying someone else to do it.
Like gardening, DIY became popular in the UK thanks to TV. One of the
first TV DIY presenters was Barry Bucknell, who presented a live show
called "Do It Yourselfﾓ in the 1950s and 60s - some people say he
actually invented the expression. Since then there have been various similar
shows, but in 1996 the first "home makeoverﾓ show (where ordinary
people's houses were decorated and drastically changed on TV) started:
the BBC's Changing Rooms. This show restarted the craze for DIY, and in
many ways helped improve the condition of British houses and create a
lot of new business for shops like B&Q, Homebase and IKEA.
However, DIY is not always a good thing! When inexperienced people start
using dangerous tools, climbing on ladders or painting ceilings, the results
can be disastrous. In 1999, the number of DIY accidents in the UK reached
200,000, and 70 people died. Bank Holidays, especially Easter Monday,
are traditionally the most popular days to try home improvements, and
so they are also the most dangerous days for accidents. There have been
many campaigns, news articles and websites set up to try to warn people
of the dangers, but unfortunately too many people seem to want to copy
their favourite TV designer's latest project.
So if you feel like trying some DIY, remember to take care and don't
try to do anything too ambitious yourself; if in doubt, call the professionals!
LINKS
General
B&Q: http://www.diy.com
Homebase: http://www.homebase.co.uk
Notcutts Garden Centres: http://www.notcutts.co.uk
Wyevale Garden Centres: http://www.wyevale.co.uk
RHS: http://www.rhs.org.uk
National Gardens Scheme: http://www.ngs.org.uk/index.html
London
Clifton Nurseries: http://www.clifton.co.uk
Camden Garden Centre: http://www.camdengardencentre.co.uk
Chelsea Gardener: http://www.chelseagardener.com/home.html
Kew Gardens: http://www.rbgkew.org.uk
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