Great British Garden Revival returns to BBC Two

The award-winning series returns to BBC Two with a brand new 10-part series in January 2015. Britain's top television gardening talent will inspire viewers to save the nation's rich garden heritage.

Britain’s rich horticultural history is being lost as more and more front and back gardens are paved over – for development and for parking spaces – or often because families don’t have the time or inclination to manage these spaces. The trend for easy-to-maintain lawns, patios and paving has led to a decline in traditional gardens full of flowers, plants and trees to the extent that some of our most iconic flora and fauna have all but disappeared.

Step forward the BBC’s most-loved gardening experts, who are determined to turn us back into a green-fingered nation once again. In Great British Garden Revival, the series which was recently awarded 'TV Broadcast Of The Year' at the 2014 Garden Media Guild Awards, fourteen of Britain’s top television gardeners – Carol Klein, Joe Swift, Rachel de Thame, James Wong, Tom Hart Dyke, Chris Beardshaw, Alys Fowler, Charlie Dimmock, Diarmuid Gavin, Christine Walkden and Toby Buckland – have come together on a joint mission to switch us back to being a population that’s proud of its blossoms and bog gardens, carnations and conifers, and lilies and lavender.

In each episode, two presenters will focus on an endangered aspect of gardens about which they feel passionately about and offer hands-on, practical advice to viewers on how they can restore and look after their gardens. The series will feature episodes on knot gardens, peonies, daffodils, bog gardens, lavender, wildlife gardens, climbers and creepers, soft fruit, and irises.

Nationwide, more people now have paved patios in their gardens than those who have trees. It all adds up to a crisis unparalleled in our history – massively increasing the risk of flooding. With five million homes in this country already at risk and uninsurable in many places, paving over our gardens will only make things worse. Only 5% of rainwater in paved, urban spaces is soaked up – the other 95% of the water is run-off, which overwhelms our drains and gutters.

This rapid and sustained loss of our private green spaces is also having a dramatic effect on our wildlife - particularly on garden birds and butterflies. Starling numbers have fallen from an average of 15 per garden in 1979 to just three in 2012, Mistle thrush has declined by an alarming 28% and House sparrow numbers have fallen by an even more alarming two-thirds in the same period. Whilst there are many reasons for their dramatic decline, paving over their habitats is hardly helping.

So what went wrong? And what can be done to reverse the decline? Can Britain once again embrace the iconic garden features and plants that once made our outdoor spaces the envy of the world?

Executive Producer for Outline Productions Bridget Boseley said: “Getting so many talented presenters involved to encourage viewers to re-engage with their gardens and our horticultural heritage demonstrates how passionately they feel about this issue and our ambition for the scale of this series.”

Lindsay Bradbury, Commissioning Editor, BBC Daytime said: “Gardening is one of Britain’s boom areas – and this format fuses together top tips, nostalgia and an unparalleled team of passionate presenters.”