Postbag Edition: Bicton Park Botanical Gardens

Gardeners' Question Time

BBC

Leisure, Home & Garden

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What’s the optimal size for a new greenhouse? How do I get cedar of Lebanon seeds to germinate? How do I revive a dried out compost heap? Kathy Clugston and a panel of passionate horticulturalists are outside Exeter to soak up the sights, scents and history of Bicton Park Botanical Gardens while digging into the GQT postbag, to solve your trickiest gardening conundrums. Joining Kathy under the big top are houseplant specialist Anne Swithinbank, award-winning garden designer Chris Beardshaw, and horticulturalist Frances Tophill - ready with expert advice, clever solutions, and a few laughs along the way. They're also joined by head manager of Bicton House, Edward Lister, to tour the 60 acres of land.

Senior Producer: Dominic Tyerman Junior Producer: Rahnee Prescod

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Hello, I'm Kimberly Wilson. I'm a psychologist, and in my new podcast, Complex, I'll be your guide
0:14.4	through all the information and misinformation that's out there about mental health.
0:19.0	I'm joined by expert guests covering topics from people-pleasing to perfectionism,
0:24.2	burnout to empathy, to find tangible advice so we can understand ourselves a little better.
0:30.5	Complex with me, Kimberly Wilson.
0:33.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:36.5	Hello and welcome to Gardner's Question Time.
0:39.6	We're in Devon this week at the historic Bicton Park Botanical Gardens,
0:44.3	midway between Sidmouth and Exmouth.
0:46.7	We have a postbag edition of the show today and we're enjoying the beautiful warm Devon rain.
0:52.3	Here to give us a tour of the garden is the general manager. Ed Lister, welcome Ed. Hi, Cathy. Hello. Thank you so much for having us today. That's all right. Thank you very much for coming. Well, can you give us a brief history of the garden? It's pretty old. Yeah, so we're dating back nearly 300 years now to 1735 when Andre Le Nutter first designed and laid out the Italian gardens
1:13.3	there's been several additions the palm house the Arboretum pine eatam so all
1:19.8	spanning through the years and what would be the highlights if somebody was coming to
1:23.4	visit here what are the must sees if you've got children definitely the Bicton
1:27.3	Woodland Railway and then the Italian Gardens Palm House that's sort of our to visit here what are the must sees if you've got children definitely the bicton woodland railway
1:27.9	and then the italian gardens palm house that's sort of our centrepiece rose garden
1:33.7	american garden pinitum arboretum there's lots there's a lot to see and you're going to show us
1:39.2	round as the program goes on but first let us meet our panel of gardening experts who will be
1:45.0	answering the questions you've been sending in by post and email. With us this week,
1:49.6	our Anne Swithinbank, Chris Beardshaw and Francis Topill. Hello. Hello. Well, before we go and look
1:55.7	around the garden, let's take our first couple of questions. The first one comes from Linda Bates,
	...

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