Postbag Edition: Belfast Botanic Garden

Gardeners' Question Time

BBC

Leisure, Home & Garden

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why are my potatoes so floury? How do you banish lace bugs for good? And what mysterious plant has the panel stumped?

Kathy Clugston and a team of gardening experts explore the various locations of Belfast Botanic Garden. All while digging into the GQT postbag to answer your gardening conundrums.

On hand with their wisdom and wit are ethnobotanist James Wong, garden designer Neil Porteous, and Kirsty Wilson, Head of Gardens at Balmoral. Guiding them through the garden’s hidden corners and floral highlights is Garden Supervisor Colin Agnew.

Producer: Bethany Hocken Assistant Producer: Dulcie Whadcock Executive Producer: Carly Maile

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

Transcript

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0:00.0	If a Banksy appeared on your house, you'd be sitting on a fortune, right?
0:07.0	At first you think you're gifted, but you're actually not.
0:10.5	This is a tale of two murals, Margate's Valentine's Day Mascara and the lowest off seagull.
0:17.3	And the true cost of free art for the people who have to live with it.
0:21.5	40,000 pounds cost per annum.
0:23.8	We didn't know what to do.
0:25.5	Nobody's turned up to say, we'll help you protect it.
0:29.0	The Banksy story.
0:30.3	When Banksy comes to town, listen on BBC Sounds.
0:36.5	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:41.3	Hello, I'm Cathy Clugston,
0:43.2	and this is Gardner's Question Time from BBC Radio 4.
0:46.8	So grab those secretars or sit back and relax, however you like to listen,
0:51.2	and enjoy the next 45 minutes of great tips, advice and dubious horticultural humour.
0:58.6	Hello and welcome to Gardner's Question Time. We're at Belfast Botanic Gardens today. It's a real home from home for me.
1:04.9	I went to school just across the road and I now live in the same part of the city. I pay a bit more attention to the plants now than I did as a school pupil.
1:13.3	The gardens were established in 1828 by the Belfast Botanic and Horticultural Society
1:18.2	and cover around 28 acres.
1:21.3	Northern Ireland's National Museum, the Ulster Museum, moved to the grounds in 1929.
1:26.1	And I'm standing now in the huge swath of lawn in the centre of the garden, the scene of music festivals and fairs and on a sunny day basking students from neighbouring Queen's University. It's surrounded by all kinds of planting, from bright bedding to a mini woodland area to a rose garden. Joining us today on the programme is the garden supervisor Colin Agnew.
1:46.8	Welcome to the show, Colin.
1:48.0	How you doing, Cathy? It's lovely to have you all,
	...

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