From the Archives: Water
Gardeners' Question Time
BBC
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kathy Clugston steers the ship through the deep waters of the GQT archive where a variety of panellists, old and new, discuss solutions to a variety of water related gardening challenges.
They debate the question of rainwater vs tap water for plants, restoring waterlogged clay soil and alternatives to water butts in narrow terrace gardens. There's also advice on flood‑damaged garden recovery and recommendations for trees for flood‑prone & drought‑prone parkland.
Producer: Rahnee Prescod Assistant Producer: William Norton
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
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| 0:12.2 | indecision, analysis, paralysis. |
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| 0:16.4 | The Martin Lewis podcast is twice weekly, helping you navigate our complex consumer world. |
| 0:21.2 | I'll walk you through a big money saving topic step by step. |
| 0:24.5 | Then in question time, you set the agenda and ask whatever's on your mind. |
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| 0:33.6 | Within reason. |
| 0:34.2 | The Martin Lewis podcast, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.5 | Hello and welcome to Gardner's Question Time with me, Cathy Clugston. |
| 0:42.9 | This week we're dipping our toes into the GQT back catalogue for an archive special on water. |
| 0:49.5 | Many places in the UK had an exceptionally wet start to 2026, resulting in flooding and saturated |
| 0:57.0 | and waterlogged ground, a real challenge for gardeners and growers alike. However, there are |
| 1:03.0 | some innovative ways to flood-proof our gardens and allotments and work with our current climate |
| 1:08.5 | to keep our green spaces healthy, whatever the weather. |
| 1:12.7 | Today we'll be submerging ourselves in 79 years of horticultural wisdom |
| 1:17.7 | doled out by GQT panellists past and present about gardening in soggy conditions. |
| 1:24.4 | Let's begin back in 2012 with Anne Swithenbank and the former panelist Tony Buckland |
| 1:30.3 | sharing their thoughts on how to revive a garden that has suffered flood damage. |
| 1:39.1 | So we're about half a mile away from the River Wrecks in the grounds of Poudram Castle |
| 1:43.1 | and I've got a nursery here thankfully up on the high ground |
... |
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