Gardeners' World star reveals Alan Titchmarsh has strict garden rule for guests to follow

Gardeners' World star Joe Swift has opened up about the time he visited the legendary Alan Titchmarsh's garden - and was given a stern warning by the BBC gardening icon

Garden designer Joe Swift has let slip how he received a firm caution from Gardeners' World icon Alan Titchmarsh about not treading on his flowerbeds during a shoot in his garden. In the high-pressure world of horticulture, few tasks are as daunting as gardening in Alan Titchmarsh's own patch.

National treasure Alan, with over four decades in the spotlight, is the UK's treasured gardening expert, and filming for Gardeners' World often takes place within his personal green haven. It was therefore with a sense of nervous anticipation that Joe joined Alan's garden to film for the programme.

Speaking to Monty Don on the BBC Gardeners' World podcast, he revealed that Alan is quite particular about making sure no evidence of the crew's presence is left behind. Joe recalled: "Alan did say if you'd trodden on a flowerbed, you had to flick it over with fork and leave it nice and tidy, or you get a bit of a telling off. So there weren't footprints or compacted soil and all that sort of thing."

However, Joe is no stranger to pressure — he likens the frenetic pace at the Chelsea Flower Show to a sporting event rather than typical gardening activities.

Joe explained: "If it's a three minute interview it takes three minutes and then you move on to the next thing," reports the Express.

"So you have to take in a huge amount of information very quickly. You know, the name of the garden, what the garden is all about, the plants, then the name of the designer...and they let you go."

By contrast, Joe explains that Gardeners' World is quite the slow affair, often involving repetitive filming due to having just one camera at their disposal, unlike the four cameras used during the Chelsea Flower Show. "You have to repeat everything three or four times," he says.

"So if I'm interviewing you, you'd be so bored of question by the end of it because I have to get close up again. Mid shot. They get why they all these different shots. We've got one camera so we have to keep repeating it."

"Whereas a Chelsea there's four cameras sometimes five cameras. And so it's very quick."

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