Few things in life are more satisfying than getting together with a good friend to geek out over plants. On that, we can all agree.
If your eyes light up when you see green, I know where you should be for an hour on Thursdays. You won’t have to get dressed up, and it won’t matter if there’s dirt under your nails. Just pour a cuppa and then join me in the gallery of Thursday Garden Chat.
Thursday Garden Chat is a semi-weekly webcast produced by Garden Masterclass, an adult education partnership of Dr. Noel Kingsbury and Annie Guilfoyle. Though Noel lives in Portugal and Annie in Sussex, the webcast production is seamless. The show begins promptly at noon Central Time in the U.S. (6 p.m. U.K. time). The link to join the webcast is here. Bookmark it now so you won’t have to look for it later.
If you enjoy GardenRant, I’m sure there’s enough space in your heart and your calendar for Thursday Garden Chat.
You really should spend some time with Noel and Annie.
Noel is an insightful writer with 25 books to his credit. Wild: The Naturalistic Garden, filled with spectacular photography by Claire Takacs, is a must-buy. I recommend all his books. I’ve bought so many that, kid you not, I’ve had to buy more shelving. In addition to writing, Noel’s interests include adult education, garden design, and the role of plants in culture and history.
Annie is a creative garden designer with both a silver gilt from Chelsea and a passion for teaching. A frequent RHS show judge, she teaches students at both Chanticleer in Pennsylvania and Great Dixter in the U.K. It’s not for nothing that Gardens Illustrated calls Annie “the best-connected woman in garden design.”
Thursday Garden Chat—one of the few good things we got from COVID.
I first caught this webcast during the initial COVID lockdown. From April 7 to May 29, 2020, Noel and Annie held court on Zoom each weekday, beginning at 4 p.m. U.K. time. That’s right, I’m talking five shows a week. What an undertaking that must have been! Then titled Tea Garden Talk, the program was a haven for gardeners desperate to find a silver lining around the dark viral clouds.
Joining the early webcasts was like hanging out in one of those old writers’ salons, where Hemingway and Fitzgerald are leaning on a bar debating the state of the world, but the characters in this scene were Bill Thomas of Chanticleer and Cassian Schmidt of Hermanshoff. In the worst of times, Tea Garden Talk was a global garden party.
Care for tea or Pimms?
Like GardenRant, Thursday Garden Chat is a safe space for global gardeners, but it’s not the place to learn how to grow zinnias.
Occasionally, controversial topics arise, such as pay rates for gardeners and native vs. adapted plants. Thankfully, the discussion leans more toward peace through understanding than conflict.
The format feels a lot like a local plant society meeting, the serious kind where everyone knows a petal from a peduncle. When the program opens, Noel and Annie banter back and forth and then introduce a guest from the wider green community. All the speakers, whether professionals or keen amateurs, volunteer their time to deliver riveting presentations or participate in worthwhile discussions. I never sign off without the satisfaction of having learned something new.
Noel and Annie both like to laugh. They revel in the joys of garden porn. I always look forward to the episodes where guests share images of the gardens that fulfill all their desires.
To their credit, Noel and Annie often use Thursday Garden Chat to highlight plant-related non-profits. One such organization is the remarkable Lemon Tree Trust, which helps people in refugee camps grow gardens for food and pleasure.
They also invest their time in documenting the life experiences of our living legends, thus safeguarding oral histories that might otherwise be lost.
Thursday Garden Chat is a who’s who of global horticulture.
Guest presenters have included people you’ve read about on GardenRant, such as Roy Diblik, Fergus Garrett, Benjamin Vogt, Abra Lee, Jennifer Jewell, and Alla Olkhovska. Other times, it’s a skilled amateur like Wendy Hilty. She wrote a book about gardening near alligators. Sometimes, the guest is just an ordinary gardener like me. I was on because Noel wanted to know what Texas Master Gardeners do with their time.
Roy shared Thanksgiving with Noel and Annie
For guests, Thursday Garden Chat is a stress-free zone. The hosts make participation simple with clear pre-show communications and follow-up. There’s no pressure to produce a PowerPoint presentation. Some programs take the form of extended interviews. If you write garden books, want to promote big recurring gardening events, or know about a green project worthy of sharing with the world, you should contact Noel and Annie.
Thursday Garden Chat is available 24 hours a day.
Don’t worry if you’re late for the party or something comes up to keep you away. You’ll miss a chance to ask questions in the chat, but you can still access the program later. The Garden Masterclass YouTube Channel has grown to nearly 8,800 subscribers. Anytime you want to binge tasty gardening content, you can tuck into over 100 hours of Garden Masterclass programming, now available for free on YouTube.
However, free will only get you so far. Noel and Annie do archive older material. For a modest donation of around $25 per year, you can be a “Friend of Garden Masterclass.” A membership will give you access to archived content, and members also get discounts and access to special events. There’s no pressure to sign up, but I did. I think of it as a thank you for the effort that goes into producing the program.
For me, Thursday Garden Chat is better than BBC’s Gardener’s World.
You may disagree, and that’s okay. I like Gardener’s World, too, but I don’t like being forced to buy BritBox to get my Carol Klein fix. For that, I have Instagram and her new autobiography, which will come out soon. She’ll probably tell us all about it on Thursday Garden Chat.
Too few gardeners know about my favorite webcast!
Help me kick off a grassroots campaign to raise awareness! Check out Thursday Garden Chat and share it with your gardening friends! I want to see your smiling face in the gallery!
BYOB
Geek out with Thursday Garden Chat originally appeared on GardenRant on August 14, 2024.
The post Geek out with Thursday Garden Chat appeared first on GardenRant.
