SPEAKER_00 0:00

BBC Gardeners World Live at the NEC in Birmingham where the sun is shining, the crowds are out. Oh, it's just so nice. The weather forecasters tell us it's going to get even better. Which is good news for my next guest, Johnny Hinks. Good to see you. I like a bit of good summer weather, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Who doesn't love a bit of summer summer weather, especially with the weather that we've had recently? It's nice to get a bit of sun. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I think the first 44 days of this year, it rained every day. You're shaking your head, it's not good, is it? You know why? It's good for the carton. Yes. It's not good for the solar, is it? Isn't it just a very British thing? We always talk about the weather. Um, but we complained about all of the wet in the beginning of the year. Then we'll get to the stage where we'll have an extended period of good weather and we'll be saying, Oh, the gardens need the rain.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

And then there'll be a hose pipe back.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

I I am terrible for that. I moan about the rain, I moan about the heat, and I just I just can't get a break.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

I just want the happy medium. Garden with Johnny is your uh online presence, isn't it? When you're not being a firefighter and training in PC. Like you've been in the gym this morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I do like I do like a workout, I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Gardening can be a good workout, can't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

100%. And you know what, not not only for the the body, it's also good for the mind as well. And I think that's one of the main reasons why I garden myself. It's just so good for my mental health.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Absolutely. Uh and that's becoming more uh obvious, isn't it? As m as as the you know, social prescribing comes in, where medics are now saying, you know, yeah, doctors are prescribed prescribing like gardening now.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

It's just it's incredible. And you know, I think if anyone's feeling low or down, then the the first thing I'd say to them is get outside is the first thing, and then get your hands in the soil and start planting something. You know, you you have a a sense of responsibility when you've got flowers, and it gives you purpose as well in life. So, you know, I can't recommend gardening enough to people. How did it all start for you? Where does this interest come from? Uh so I've always been a gardener, and I come from a family of gardeners, I'm half Dutch, uh, and the Dutch are just as crazy as gardening as a spritz. Uh so I I grew up in a gardening family, and um, so uh I've always gardened and I would class myself as an amateur gardener. Uh I never did any qualifications, however, I would say I'm a I'm an okay good slash good gardener, and I wanted uh a way of expressing and showing off my garden, and that's how I made my social media garden with Johnny. And not only do I do hints and tips, I also like to show people that gardening can be entertaining and can be fun, and you can have an absolute fantastic time in your garden.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

So you say hints and tips. Lots of people coming to the show looking for inspiration, but also there'll be you know not just the ones who know what they're doing, there's a lot of new gardeners that come as well, looking for some very basic hints and tips. So at this time of the year, some people say, Oh, it's a bit late now in the middle of the year, too late to plant anything, but that's not the case, is it?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

No, not necessarily. I mean, you you can you can buy your uh already um made plants in in the garden centres, plant them up now before the hot summer turns up. It's great to get the roots established and make them uh uh established within the in the soil itself. Um what I'm actually going to be doing this weekend is I'm going to be sowing my uh foxglove seeds. The reason why you sow them now is because they're biannuals. So, biannuals, what they do is they grow the first season, then flower the second season. So I won't get any flowers until next year, but I am thinking ahead always with my garden, what I want the garden to look like next year. So my my weekend job is uh sowing foxglove seeds.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Top tip uh for everybody sow your foxglove seeds now. For anybody wanting a bit a bit more uh instant gratification in their gardens. I mean, what should they be looking at planting now that they can enjoy through to say September?

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Uh yeah, so dahlias. Dahlias are a massive one. Uh you can uh you might be a little bit late if you're buying the tubers, you can you can give it a go, but you can get dahlias from any garden centres. Uh I'm actually with the British Garden Centres this weekend, um, this week with Gardeners World. Uh I recommend going to the British Garden Centres. Get your dahlias, and they they will flower if as long as you keep deadheading them, will flower right up until the first frost. Um, so they are a fantastic and I love a dahlia. I am a big fan of the bishop varieties of dahlias.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Okay, why?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

What is it about? It's the open petal. Yeah. And the the great thing about the open petal dayas is they're brilliant for pollinators as well, which is something I'm really interested in as well, the wildlife within your garden.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

A lot of people will be looking to enjoy their gardens with as little maintenance as possible. I'm not going to call them lazy gardens because I am one. But the ones who are a little more laid back, you know, minimum input, maximum uh output. What sort of things should they be looking at? Because they you don't you don't want to be spending all your time up to your knuckles in compost, do you?

SPEAKER_01 4:58

You've got your shrubs. Um what I will always say to people is a really good shrub to go for, which is really low maintenance, easy to look after, are lavenders. And my personal favourite Hidcut lavender. Um the great thing with lavenders, the bees love them, they give you that amazing scent, and they're fairly maintenance-free. You just have to uh cut them back once a year, once they've finished flowering, and then they'll just come back each year. They're called perennials uh as well, so they they they you know they will come back each year.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And they can be done in pots, they don't have to be.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

I've actually got a few in my pots, yeah, yeah, they're they're good, they're good. And they're they're quite drought tolerant as well. So with the ever-changing climate that we have in this country, uh, I know we've had a lot of rain rain recently, um, but you know, past years we're we're um we're getting drier and drier summers, and they cope quite well in in dry conditions.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Uh have you seen a change over the years in in what's I I dread to use the word but trendy? What's popular? Uh I mean I look around the show gardens and the beautiful borders here this year, and so many people are using salvia. The sort of purple mauve colours are beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, one of my favourite salvias is called Salvia Caradonna. Uh, it's a beautiful, striking purple, and it's very structural within the borders as well. Uh, you say things that are becoming popular, grasses are becoming popular. There's lots you you walk around the show borders here. I would say every single show border has a type of grass. Now, I would say I have a favourite grass, it's called Carl Forester, it's quite a compact grass but extremely tall. Again, it gives you structure within the border and it gives an amazing autumn colour as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

So, what goes on in your garden during the winter? I mean, again, a lot of people think we get through autumn and and everything shuts down, but uh gardeners are busy during the winter.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So I I tend to do a lot of my tidying up in the winter. Uh I don't I tend to do a lot of my planning. I uh before the weather gets too cold, I do a lot of my splitting and moving of plants. Uh this year, in fact, I I've looked at my full sun border and I'm not entirely 100% happy with it. So I'm already thinking, right, what am I going to move, what am I going to change, what am I going to take out, what am I going to put in. And it's all about the planning for the next year in the winter.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

You've got a huge following on social media. You must get bombarded with questions all the time. I do. Okay, so what are the most common questions you're asked, and and what's the most unusual?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So I think the most common question I get asked is how I keep slugs and snails off my hostas. Uh now I do that a few ways. So I try and incorporate and encourage wildlife into my garden to try and use natural predators. Uh, I also use uh a product called Feed and Protect, which feeds the hosta, and also apparently it changes the taste of the leaf, which the slugs don't like. Uh so that's what I use. I also use beer traps. That's a famous one, isn't it? So I spend an absolute fortune on beer, and I don't I don't drink hardly any of it. Uh, but it's all for the slugs, so it's a great way of getting the slugs, and also garlic as well. So you boil down a load of garlic, put it into a spray, and you spray the leaves itself. Again, it changes the taste of the leaves themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Garlic in in a spray, I've heard many times for um uh ridding certain uh trees and bushes of of black fly, white fly, whatever it might be. Does it genuinely work or is it a you know is it an old myth?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

I I would say it does to an extent. Um I would say the best course to get rid of any sort of pest is to encourage the predator that preys on it. Um it does work to an extent, yes. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I've got a budlier that is plagued with black flies. Is it really? Yeah, absolutely, on the under underside of the leaf. And I've sprayed it with everything I can think of, and they're just laughing at me. Yeah. Any suggestions?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

You can actually buy caterpillars, uh ladybirds. You can buy ladybirds online now, and they get shipped to your house, and you can just release ladybirds out into your garden, and again, like I said, a natural predator.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

I think I've heard it all now. Yeah. Mail order ladybirds.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

You can that's amazing. You can get mail order ladybirds.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Lots of uh exhibitors here at British Garden Centre as well, representing you can buy almost anything for the garden here. In fact, outside our studio, we look past everybody is walking past with a little pull-along trolley uh full uh of things, including gadgets, and Father's Day is coming up on Sunday. Um, there might be people looking for inspiration about what to buy somebody for Father's Day. What's your top tip?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Tool wise, right? So I think every dad, every father have uh they have a obsession with lawns. I have two children, I have an absolute mad obsession with my lawn, and my bane is little weeds coming into the lawn. Now you can get a lawn weed puller, and you basically put it into the lawn, uh, it's quite a long stick, you pull back on it, and it takes out the whole tap root of whatever normally a dandelion. I'm so satisfying. It's one of my go-to tools, honestly, and it's it's I I find gardening relaxing. I find weeding my lawn with that tool even more relaxing.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

But if you've already got one, uh what what are you going to end up with this Father's Day then?

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Oh I don't be a surprise, isn't it? I asked my daughter the other day, I just said to her, I said, have you have you got me anything? She was like, Yes. I said, Well, what have you got me? She goes, I can't tell you. So I don't know what I'm getting. It's gonna be a surprise.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Um what what next for you, uh Johnny? I mean, obviously you you've got a constant flow of followers uh for your uh social media, um, but there's always stuff that needs doing online, isn't it? It you know, that the internet world is content hungry all of the time. What's what's coming next for you?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

I've had a few appearances on TV recently. Um my book's out and been released. It's uh it's it's on sale now. What's it called? Uh Garden Yourself Happy. Uh great title. Yeah, and it's it's basically uh concept of what you see on my social media all in book form. So the quirky, the funny side, the enjoyment, the happy side of gardening, also with all the hints and tips that you could possibly think of as well. Uh yeah, it was a Sunday Times bestseller as well, so I'm absolutely over the moon with that.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Not bad going. And in terms of the TV work, um, I did you enjoy that? Do you want to do more of it?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

I did, yeah, I really enjoyed it. I mean, if if more opportunities come up, I'll be saying yes. But I am absolutely quite happy with how everything's going so far. I am I am riding this roller coaster and enjoying every second.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Absolutely. We should just mention the brilliant work of our firefighters in the UK. You are uh you're on the reserve. I am a whole time firefighter. Right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

So I work uh 48 hours a week. I do two day shifts, two night shifts, and then I have four days off. Uh, yep, love it, absolutely love it. I will I one of the biggest questions I get asked is will I leave the fire service? The answer is no, because I love I love creating content, I love gardening, but I also love working for the fire service as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Is the station that you're you're based at um nicely gardened? It's not right. Station what's your name of your station commander?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Uh station commander, oh it's just changed, it's uh Joe Carter.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Right, station commander Joe Carter, you need to get on his case and have some have some pots done done somewhere. Um I mean you must have some in between all the training and and when you're out on a shout, obviously you must have some downtime, which perhaps you might be able to help them with on that one. You could get all the other firefighters sowing some seeds into it.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Exactly, I'd love to, but it's whether they'd be willing to do that, get them into the garden of clouds. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Fantastic. Really good to see you. I know you're busy for the for the rest of the show, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, I am. I my my schedule is quite jam packed, it's good. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

And uh just mention the name of the book again.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Uh Garden Yourself Happy. Fantastic. Johnny, really good to meet you. Thank you so much.