If any of you are regular watchers of the One Show on BBC One on weekday evenings, you will know that Christine Walkden has her own little spot on the couch opposite Christine Bleakely and Adrian Chiles talking about gardening.
I didn't think that Christine was getting enough time to talk so I thought I would try and catch up with her and have a little chat. Christine very kindly gave me half an hour of her time, even though she had driven over three thousand miles during the week honouring her commitments.
Despite her hectic day, Christine sounded fresh as though she had been on holiday. And here is our chat.
Christine, you are obviously very busy, but you are passionate about your garden, how do you feel about being away from your garden all day?
"It's a life of a gardener isn't it, you have got work to do, you do your best to make sure it is all right before you go and you water everything and you check things, but it's one of those consequences, it is life."
Christine continued: "I mean even if you are busy or not, if you have got a nine till five job it's no different to being freelance really, because off you go and unless there is somebody there, it's tough and you just got to do your best and you hope everything is OK but this years been so flippin' soggy that it hasn't been much of a problem."
Christine makes time for a little chuckle and I cannot but help getting wrapped up in her bubbly approach, I warm to her down to earth personality and I feel relaxed.
Do you have a nine to five type of job? Christine was quick to interrupt: " No, no I have a peculiar lifestyle, the only thing that is normal about my lifestyle is there is no normality. I can be going out at four thirty in the morning to drive down to Chelsea to deliver a training course and may not be back until eleven o'clock at night; equally I can be here all day writing and catching up on other stuff."
Do you have anyone who comes in, I know about Reg and I will get to him in a minute because I think he is a fantastic fellow.
"Oh mega star Reg as we now call him, he's a lovely man," Christine interjects.
Yes, he is a mega star, I think he is brilliant I love his chuckles, does Reg come in and do the watering when you are away?
"Yes he does, I mean, Reg is the main person that looks after things, he does his best and if things survive great, and if they don't I'm not going to shoot him, you know, at the end of the day, he is not a trained horticulturalist and mistakes can happen, but not often.
"He does his best and at the end of the day if you are asking someone to come in to look after something they are not going to deliberately knock something off for the hell of it are they?"
I remember with fondness the time when you light heartedly told him off for the wrongly pruning his Magnolia, that I thought made brilliant telly, but he takes it all in such good spirit doesn't he?
"He does take it in good spirit and Reg would not hurt a fly and he does not take offence easily and, at the end of the day he is an amateur gardener and I am a professional and to be honest, on occasions he does some very peculiar things and I just tell him; he normally just giggles it off."
I have got to ask you this question, do you think he carries a little torch for you because there seems to be a twinkle in his eye.
"I don't know about carrying a torch but we have always had a very special relationship and we always make each other giggle, whether he carries a torch or not I don't know but I am very fond of him and Pat."
Pat always makes you cake and apple pies doesn't she?
"Oh Yeah. They are great and they are like a Mum and Dad down here, they are exactly the same age as my Mum and Dad and in many ways I view them with the same fondness."
We move from the fun bit to the serious question of Gardeners World and we agree that GW is gone through a bit of turmoil. I ask Christine who would have been her first choice as presenter; Christine cut me dead before I had finished the question and with no hesitation Christine replied: "Chris Beardshaw because he is articulate, he's enthusiastic and he knows his subject."
Chris seemed to be in the frame for a while but for you, was there a second choice? "No, it's a straight choice; Chris Beardshaw."
Was it a surprise to you that Toby Buckland got the job?
"That position was always going to be a very difficult position whatever and however you went with it and it was always going to be a difficult choice.
"There was an awful lot of politics and there was an awful lot we didn't know about that we were not privvy to and it was always going to be difficult whoever got the position."
Christine was in a serious mood and said "I just hoped that Toby has got what it takes to bring it off, we have all got good and bad, but if we lost Gardeners World we would all be down the pan as far as gardening on the television is concerned."
Were you offered the job and would you have taken it?
"I did express and interest but not as the main presenter but joining the Gardeners World team, yes."
I said in my last article on you, where I used a footballing analogy, that I think they [the producers] should sign you up in the next transfer window.
Christine's tone remained business like and she said "I don't think they see me as a BBC 2 presenter"
There was a rather uneasy silence here and Christine didn't proceed as fluidly although I was waiting for an 'and', but it did not come.
I moved onto the One Show and asked how it was going. Christine was enjoying being out and about and had actually done more than the twelve slots that had been booked and asked how she got on with Adrian Chiles.
"Professionally, we get on with each other," She said.
There are an awful lot of gardening presenters on the television who are there because of personality and not because of their horticulture qualifications. Do you think that horticulture had been dumbed down?
"Oh yes, and I think the basic problem we've got is there are very few, if any, keen gardeners who are the producers. and the people who make the programs."
"Until we have someone with a great passion for gardening directing and suggesting what is on television as far as gardening content is concerned it wont change.
"I don't think that they are empathetic with the subject, they [the producers] are interested with the television aspect rather than the detail."
I asked if any of the Gardeners World production team had any horticultural background?
Christine answered "I don't think so no. They have got researchers that are supposed to have experience but my knowledge of researchers is, and not with Gardeners World obviously, is that they just read the web and take it as gospel and they have not got the background or the knowledge to draw on to be able to evaluate that.
"In many ways they are after a story and nine times out of ten they could not give a toss about the content as long as they have got a story"
Garden magazines and blogs
We move on to a subject that I have become quite passionate about and that is how the garden writers are still regarding blogs as 'not real journalism'.
Do you think there is a place for blogs in horticulture journalism?
"Yes there is but there is a limited market and I think the biggest problem with gardening, if there is a problem because there has always been a journalistic take on it, but media is trying to address such a wide audience and you have got some people who are totally inexperienced and then you have got the much more intelligent and gardener that who has been doing it for years.
"How do you in practise address that in the written word in a general article? We have got the specialist magazines like The Plantsman and the RHS Journal but I think the biggest problem we have got is this vast tool that we stand in front of and you have got to try and be all things to all men and it is very difficult.
"There are vehicles for your information but it just depends on your target audience"
What are your plans for the future?
"Continuing what I already do. My life is very happy, I am very busy and life continues in the same way as it always has done"
More television projects?
"If anybodies daft enough to have me yes, it is all right sitting here dreaming but if no bugger asks you aren't going to get anything"
I think they would be daft not to ask you.
"Listen, that is the perception and the wish of the British gardening public, I meet them every day and every day I get asked what's happening am I doing a third [Christine's Garden]. It is one thing being the public for it is another thing trying to convince the BBC.
"Every single day, including this morning up in Leeds people stop me and say that they want to see more of you. My greatest gift having done Christine's Garden, and give credit to the BBC for doing it in the first place, is the people love what they saw, and I am obviously, in their eyes a very loved person and I would be stupid not to knowledge that.
"The frustration is of course is that we need to differentiate; BBC One are obviously using me for the One Show for that type of program but it is very different. It is not a gardening program, it is a current affairs program and a magazine program, I am lucky to be there in reality but I think but BBC Two just don't see me as their type of material. I know Christine's Garden was produced by BBC 2 but who knows what the criteria is?
"Who knows what is being commissioned and why or what is even in the 'think tank'. I haven't got a clue and I am no wiser than when I first met the BBC."
And how do you fill your time when not doing TV work?
"I do private talks and everything that I have always done. I am still a gardener that does a bit of television and I prefer to be seen like that because of what I am.
"Television is a tiny part of it. I love doing television don't get me wrong and I feel very privilege to do television because, when you are addressing that sort of an audience it is phenomenal, but ninety nine percent of my time is spent doing things other than television and it is all gardening related."
I am sure people are very envious of your lifestyle?
"I am sure they are but having done over three thousand miles this week I am not sure if they could keep up."
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