Lucy Chamberlain - BBC Gardeners' World Spring Fair 2026 Preview

Meet the Experts - Lucy Chamberlain
Soak up seasonal advice with Lucy Chamberlain – whether on a tour of one of Beaulieu’s stunning gardens or in a hands-on Have-A-Go Workshop each day at the Fair!

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, now that spring feels like it has sprung, we can look forward to BBC Gardeners World Spring Fair, which returns to the fabulous setting of Bewley in Hampshire from Friday the 1st to Sunday, the 3rd of May. Joining me to look ahead to the show is Lucy Chamberlain, horticultural expert, garden writer, broadcaster, and professional working gardener who is no stranger to the show. Lucy, really good to catch up with you. Isn't it great to be looking forward to the words spring and gardening in the same sentence?

SPEAKER_01 0:35

I know, it is just lovely, isn't it? And the the yeah, the weather at the moment is very, very spring-like. We've had a very sort of long, drawn-out, wet winter, and now, like you say, Steve, it's lovely, lovely to think about spring. And it's it is really is the garden really is moving, that lots of things are out in in blossom. Uh the bees are on the wing, so are the butterflies. It's it's just gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

It feels like the year has started now, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Exactly, exactly. Yes, yeah. I say with long wait, but finally, finally we're at the starting blocks.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Absolutely. Now we'll go into detail about what you're doing at the show uh in a moment, but um just tell us about how because you grew up on a on a market garden in Essex, didn't you? How did that shape your your passion for for gardening and for for plants, particularly?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, yeah, I did. I did. My mum and dad were small holders and they had a um a 12-acre nursery just outside Colchester and they'd send lots of produce, lots of salads and um tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, celery, all that kind of thing to the London markets. Um, and it was lovely, it was a lovely upbringing for me. And that is where I really um honed my passion for growing your own food. I remember going away to college because I studied at Rittle and why colleges studied horticulture there, and you had to buy vegetables and actually spend money on them. I was shocked, you know, because mum and dad had such a wonderful collection of stuff of produce at home, but um to go away and actually have to buy the stuff I was it was mortifying. Um but no, it was it's a lovely thing to do. I I so enjoy growing my own food and and just growing plants generally, it's it's a wonderful creative thing, it can tap into so many senses, and um, I think that's what I really enjoyed when I was little. So for me, the smell of tomatoes and tomato plants, as soon as I get that smell, it reminds me of being three, four years old, of being in those commercial greenhouses with mum and dad. And and I still grow tomatoes today. I couldn't, I couldn't not. It's it's they're one of my must do must-grow crops every single summer.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

They do have a very recognizable aroma, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

They do.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Something smell, isn't it? That that really gets it's but probably the most powerful of the senses, I suspect.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like you say, it can really take you back to moments in your in your own history, your own lifetime when you when you really were immersed in those experiences. And I think that's what gardening does for me. It's very um familiar and comfortable, and especially growing my own food. I I absolutely love doing that. I've got a a family and I love growing produce for them and experimenting with different um crops, different fruits and herbs and veg. Uh so yeah, it's it's something that can tap into so many senses. Um, and just the the the taste as well, when you grow your own food, it's absolutely delicious compared to anything shop bought, it's so fresh. And you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Knowing the provenance, isn't it? You've you've you've pulled it out of the ground or plucked it off a uh off a vine and then you're eating it. There's that's that connection. You have it seem to have a more of a connection with the food, don't you then?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, you really do. You really do. If you've sown that seed from the seed packet, or even if you you know you've ordered the seed, sown it, grown it on in your greenhouse or wherever, and then planted it out, nurtured it, watch it grow, and then you get to that point of harvest, it's immensely satisfying. And then there's something that just elevates the flavours and the sensations, and that that triumphant harvest that you have, you know, whether it be digging up potatoes or popping fresh peas in your mouth or picking a strawberry or whatever it is, when you've done all that yourself, you're as you say, you're so connected, you've got a relationship with that food. Um, and it just adds at so many more dimensions to to when you're actually eating it at home with your family. It's lovely.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Absolutely. Now, you have done a lot in your gardening career, haven't you? You've worked as a head gardener, you've been an editor, magazine editor, you're now an author and broadcaster and appearing at various shows and and nurturing young talent and talking to and mentoring people. How how is your approach to your gardening changed as your your sort of part of you know your professional part of it has changed? Have you have you changed your mind on things? Have you got a new perspective on things?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

I think um I think that's a really good question. I think the the more you garden, the more you can experiment and try things, and the more um seasons you get under your belt, you know, you get really wet um summers or really dry ones. And and for me, I would because I went to college, I had the scientific understanding right from the get-go, which was lovely. I loved understanding how things work. So, and I don't think that fundamentally changes. Science is science, and I think that maybe it's our um our understanding of horticulture as a whole is shifting. So, in that sense, I mean, you know, we we the organic gardening now is is so mainstream and no-dig and um rewilding the you know, the importance of wildlife. That really is mainstream when when you were sort of you know 20, 30 years ago, it was it was there, but it wasn't like a um you know, a main that sort of thought of of gardeners. But it's great that it is now, and that's so that to me has shifted. And obviously, the environment and the climate now is much more in the forefront of people's minds as well. So the plants we choose, the way we garden, the resources we have, you know, mulching, watering, all that kind of thing, making um gardens easier to look after, whilst also ensuring the plants are thriving. I think that's that's definitely becoming more important to people rather than just the aesthetics. But you know, the aesthetics is still hugely there. Um, but I think the the way we garden is um being thought about in much more of an environmentally conscious way, which is which is only a great thing, isn't it, really?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yes, it is. And I and I think there's a lot of uh a lot of talk now about the garden and its place within the ecosystem. It's not just about the plants, it's about the things that the garden attracts, the insects and things that that garden attracts as well. And that that's a f a fundamental part of thinking, particularly with a lot of younger people.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And isn't that great that we're instilling that mindset into people from such a young age? So if they're gonna be gardeners, whether that's their their profession or for a hobby, they are already going to be thinking, you know, automatically about their impact upon um the local environment, the the international environment as well, you know, the resources they're using, are they going to want to use plastic and peep products now? Definitely, you know, you know, very much not so. And and that is that is great. I'm so glad that we're not relying on pesticides anymore because I had to remember all the active ingredients of these, you know, some three, four decades ago. And now it's so much easier because I don't I don't have to, which is brilliant because the names were very, very they didn't trip off the tongue, Steve. Let's put it like that. They were a little bit kind of like scientific. So that's that's good. And yeah, to me, um, you know, being out in a garden and just seeing nature around you is one of the attractions for it. So so the more we can garden that way, the more people are gonna get a really wonderful experience when they do so.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Absolutely. Now, uh BBC Gardeners World Spring Fair at uh Bewley uh is an incredibly lovely setting, um, and you know it well. Uh you're there all three days from Friday the first to Sunday the third. You're gonna be busy. What are you doing at the show?

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I'm doing a couple of things this year. I wasn't content with just doing one, I'm doing two. Um, so so I always uh and I thoroughly enjoy this aspect of it. There are um plant expert tours of the kitchen gardens and the ornamental gardens. And um we join up with the beauty team. A head gardener there, Kelvin Yap, is is a lovely chap, and he's always makes us so feel so very welcome because we come along and um give people tours of his garden, it's his space. He planted it all up decades ago. So um we will be doing that. The the greenhouses there are packed to the brim with beautiful bedding plants and vines and wall-trained fruit, and then we'll be playing so close to the solar, the microclimate of um beauty gardens is is so um is so mild, you can get away with a lot of plants that you wouldn't be able to grow outside in other gardens. So we can show people those. Um there's there's a wonderful water system, uh, which when we explain that to people, they can't believe the because it was a monastic site centuries ago, um, the water is piped away from um the gardens miles and miles through these very ancient pipe works. And so we love explaining all those sorts of historical aspects of the gardens to people, as well as showing them all the plants as well. So that's a really nice thing to do. Yeah, and then there's the second aspect to um what I'm doing this year at the spring fair is um I'm uh designing a border. It's called the um Make a Meta Matter um border, and it's a code um sorry, it's a collaboration with between myself and the Graf Menster, who's a presenter on uh Newsround, Children's Programme Newsround. He's a lovely chap, he's bags will of energy, he's very enthusiastic about gardening, and I'm helping him to showcase to people how you can make one meter of your garden matter, um, in such that you can either choose to grow some food for your garden or you can choose to um grow something that will benefit, as I say, the local environment, so wildlife gardening. Um, and that's that's what we're doing. It's a nine-square meter border, and um we're growing herbs, salads, and uh we're also um encouraging wildlife to the border. So we've got lots and lots of ideas there that hopefully hopefully people can take home and as I say, just with one square meter, they can they can transform their garden patch.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

You're going to be busy, aren't you? That's gonna be really popular.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

I'm hoping so. I'm hoping the wildlife bits in particular, I'm really excited about because um obviously I'm I'm very happy growing herbs and salads, and we've got salad leaves there that are going to be either mild or medium flavour or really quite peppery. So we're gonna do some tastings and show people what they can do again in that square meter. And with the herbs, it's um showing people uh herbs for well-being and medicinal benefits, um, cosmetic herbs, so people can grow herbs too, put into soaps and other cosmetic products for um for themselves, and then obviously herbs for the kitchen as well. So we're gonna have some tastings there of unusual and more mainstream herbs. But the wildlife aspect of the garden is is I say, I think it's gonna be the crowd pleaser because we've got um a wildlife pond, because in a square meter you can easily add a very small but you know uh uh impactful wildlife pond, and it will draw in frogs and dragonflies and all sorts of aquatic life, which is exciting to watch but also beneficial to the garden. And then we're gonna have an insect hotel, which many people now are familiar with that concept of a bug hotel where you've got all the nooks and crannies which the insects can stay in, but we're also making a hedgehog nest. So a lot of people are familiar with hedgehog houses to get them through the winter, but actually in May, when the beauty show is, is when hedgehogs will start to find areas where they can nest and breed and raise their young. So that is what we're going to be creating, and I'm hoping, I'm really hoping, we can actually get some real life hedgehogs to show to the public as well. Wouldn't it be a local charity? Fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

I was reading recently, they've just discovered that hedgehogs have a hearing far, far higher than than anything else, far higher than human hearing, almost into the ultrasound. And and this this research study is suggesting that they could use this um as a way of protecting hedgehogs to stop them going near roads and and things like that. So fascinating. Hedgehogs, you don't see enough of them nowadays, do we?

SPEAKER_01 12:28

You don't. They are actually, you know, they are really threatened and their numbers are in decline. And I a lot of that is because people are putting fences up around their gardens and they're wanting to obviously secure their borders, but this is something that hedgehogs really struggle with because they're territorial animals and they they have quite a big territory, and so um we we are encouraging people to make little hedgehog holes in their fences to be very small, um, but yeah, little gateways so they can meander through uh people's back gardens and maintain their territory because that's what they really would naturally like to do. And then in turn, they bring many benefits to to us in that they they do um have a healthy appetite for various creatures in the garden. Um, so worms, slugs, snails, beetles, all sorts of things that they they all help to kind of you know maintain the balance of that, and just knowing that you're helping them is a is a wonderful thing. So, um yeah, so that I'm I'm like I say I'm fingers crossed that watch this space. If you come to the garden and and you see a hedgehog, I've done my job well. That's that's my ultimate goal for this for this year.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Absolutely. Now the date for your diary AE are Friday the 1st to Sunday, the 3rd of May. Lucy Chamberlain will be there for all three days. Lots of information on the website, bbcgardenersworldfair.com, about how to buy tickets and exactly what's going on and where. And do remember that uh tickets will also get you into the rather fabulous motor museum uh at Bewley. So even more of a day out. Now, what is one day enough though, Lisa? Because there is so much to see. Um, for some movie coming for the first time to Spring Fair, what can they expect? And what what would you put on your must-see list?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Oh gosh, um there's so much, Steve. There really is, like you say, it's it's difficult to cram it all in. I I definitely would say obviously the tours of the kitchen garden and the ornamental gardens for me are a little secret treat because it's physically in a different place to the main show area. So you have to walk a few minutes, only two or three minutes, but it's tucked away and it's a little hidden gem of the the show. The show gardens is are wonderful, so inspiring. Um, and like I say, obviously, we will be you know there this year with our with our boarders as well. There's there's so much to do. There's live music, there's falcondry displays as well, which I I sat there with my family watching those last year. They were a real treat. Um, and I also should say that Beauty is quite unique and that it's got a monorail. Um, and this is a train that hovers above the gardens about sort of five metres up, and you can take a tour around the gardens themselves in the monorail. It does go around the kitchen gardens, and so you can wave at me if I'm there, and I promise you I'll wave back. Kelvin the head gardener, he's been there 40 years, and the novelty for him has worn off now. But I promise I will wave back. He might just roll his eyes at you. Um, but yeah, and the the honestly, the motor museum. I am a little bit of a car fan, a classic car fan, so I shall be going to the motor museum if I can sneak um 20 minutes away as well. So honestly, so so much. Um, I haven't even mentioned the food. Oh, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

There's there's food, there's there's shopping, isn't there? There's the um the Gardeners World uh magazine stage. You're going to be on there with uh de Graft Mensa who you've already uh mentioned. Um and there's tastings, uh, wine and cheese, mocktails.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Goodness me.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Honestly, you're making me hungry and a nice link in with what you've got on your make em eat a matter area, because Adam Kirtland is doing a bug hotel making session, isn't he? So he is. If you get into both of those, that would be that would be really good. Um Lucy, uh lots of prep to do for the show, and I need I know that you need to um crack on, but one of the things that uh I'd like to touch touch on finally is uh people come to the show to buy and to have a nice day out, but they come for inspiration. They come to look at the at the borders and the displays uh and to see what they can do with their space. And there are a lot of people who don't have the luxury of big gardens. They have uh a patio, they have a small modest plot. What can they do to make the most of uh of that small plot? And and also maybe you know things like buckets, containers, wheelbarrows, or or as we've seen, you know, Belfast Sinks, which made a big hit a few years ago as a planting area. What what what can people do? What's the top tips for them?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Oh well, so definitely go for something eye-catching because um, you know, if you've got a small garden, you want to be able to really cram it full of things that reflect your personality. That's the great thing about gardening. So, as you say, whether it can be a water feature or a piece of sculpture or um, you know, mirrors are fantastic ways of actually reflecting space and making your garden appear bit bigger. So there's some very clever things you can do there with the design. Um, and also uh recessive colours, actually, sort of like the the more gentle kind of like pinks and purples and blues, they make spaces look bigger, they make things look like they're going into the distance, so that's quite clever as well. Um, and then also thinking about um the if you're growing food, making sure you grow you know really special things to you. If you've got a real hankering for growing something like some strawberries or you love a cherry tree, or you really love broccoli or spinach, for example, if you're like a you know, you like your smoothies, then then definitely choose things that you love to eat. Don't grow things that take up lots of space that can be quite readily available into the shops, like main crop potatoes and onions. That's maybe not what you want to be doing. So really go for those ones that are you know top of your to grow and your to eat list. Um, yeah, and like you say, containers can be a great way of cramming lots of different plants into a small space, but make sure that the containers themselves are relatively good size because lots of little containers can be a real bind when it comes to watering, they'll dry out really quickly in the summer. But yeah, that's that's um, you know, one of the ways to to really make it a more low maintenance space. And then think about things like um sound in the garden. You know, if you want some wind chimes or you've got a water feature, or you've got grasses or something that make a rustling sound, tap into all those different senses and fragrant plants too. You know, make that space work really very hard for you. Um, choose plants that have multiple functions.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Absolutely great advice. If you want to know more, you'll have to go to the show and catch up with the brilliant Lucy Chamberlain. BBC Gardenersworldfair.com is the website. The dates for your diary Friday the first to Sunday the third of May. Lots of information on the website. Do make a point of going seeing if you can spot a hedgehog on Lucy's Make a Meter Matter space. Lucy, really good to catch up with you now uh and uh look forward to the show.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Oh, it'd be lovely to see you there and uh thank you so much for your time.