'The Art of the Garden': the new TV series highlights the best practices of contemporary design

The Flora Journal

May 3

Produced by Colonial Pictures and broadcasted by Sky Arts, the second series of 'The Art of the Garden' will showcase the very best of contemporary garden design around the world. Talented garden designers talk about their latest projects and demonstrate the links between healing, climate change, sustainability and the art of the garden. The series begins on May 9, 2023 and continues each week airing at 7pm.

SEASON 2

EPISODE 1: Piet Oudolf, Scampston Hall
Forty years ago the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf rebelled against the use of annuals in favour of perennials. He led the New Perennial Movement – also known as 'The Dutch Wave' – and it changed garden design forever. His first major garden in this style was Scampston Hall in Yorkshire and it looks as good today as it did then.

EPISODE 2: Luciano Giubbilei, Tuscany Garden
Twenty-five years after starting life as a garden designer, Luciano Giubbilei has finally created a garden in the country in which he was born. Having been brought up in the walled city of Siena, he jumped at the chance to create a stunning garden around a villa whose views are of a Tuscan landscape unchanged for centuries.

EPISODE 3: Jo Thompson, Cool Garden RHS Rosemoor
At Rosemoor, the Royal Horticultural Society garden in Devon, Jo Thompson has designed a Cool Garden. In a county that has some of the highest rainfall in Britain, she's had to use all the skills acquired in twenty-five years as a garden designer to show how water can be turned from a problem into an opportunity.

EPISODE 4: Andy Sturgeon, Battersea Power Station
After ten years, the restoration of one of London's landmarks is complete. Chelsea gold medal winner Andy Sturgeon was selected to design the rooftop gardens of Battersea Power Station and the result is a triumph. He has created a set of unique 'gardens in the sky.'

EPISODE 5: Ann-Marie Powell, Wisley Wildlife Garden
Designer Ann-Marie Powell has been set a challenge; to create two new gardens for the Royal Horticultural Society in Surrey. They include its first-ever wildlife garden and the remarkable World Food Garden – a sign that this 200-year-old society is moving with the times.

EPISODE 6: Alistair Baldwin, Kinross House
In Scotland, Kinross House has been heroically restored as a tribute to the man who commissioned it in 1685 – Sir William Bruce. For this, the first Palladian house in Scotland, garden designer Alistair Baldwin knew that he had to create gardens that were sympathetic to its style.