The wonderful Alan Titchmarsh, the nation’s favourite garden makeover expert, is coming back to our screens this summer with a brand new series of ITV’s Love Your Garden. Love your Garden is now coming up to its ninth season and in the last six years we’ve seen Alan, along with his experienced team, David Domoney, Katie Rushworth, Frances Tophill and a selection of talented landscapers, design and build top-quality (not bish bash bosh like some other garden makeover programmes), beautiful gardens for people who may have experienced tough times or who play a huge part in their local communities – people who deserve their dream garden. The Love your Garden cast work together to transform spaces of all shapes and sizes and overcome challenges, all whilst providing the viewers at home with top garden tips.
You may think you’ll be busy taking notes for your own garden makeover but you’ll also need some tissues at the ready as each episode never fails to tug at your heartstrings. There’s always a tear jerking section of Love your Garden which involves Alan taking some time to discuss with the garden owner what a new garden will mean to them. As hedging suppliers, we realise that gardens can sometimes be sentimental and link to our emotions – they stimulate our senses in many ways and their very existence is good for our overall well-being.
Hedges Direct & Love Your Garden – Our Journey
Love Your Garden 2021 – Episode 6, Season 11
Episode 6 of Love Your Garden Season 11 aired on Tuesday 26th October featuring an eco-inspired kitchen garden for community hero Margaret Mary. The team were called in by members of the local community in Salford where Margaret works tirelessly, helping to transform the lives of recovering addicts and people with mental health issues via the community kitchen. Here she manages to provide both food and a helping hand to turn people’s lives around.
The team were asked to help transform Margaret’s bland square garden – the first garden she’s ever had – into a pretty yet functional space where she could grow food for the kitchen but also relax and enjoy her environment, in thanks for the many people she has been able to help.
However, this extra special garden had a stipulation from Margaret who is passionate about recycling, and that was that as many existing materials as possible should be utilised to create an eco-friendly as well as organic garden! Alan and the team accepted the challenge and were able to use sustainable timber, used pallets and barrells as planters and even an old bath to create a pond in which to grow watercress!
For the planting the team chose to use edible and ornamental plants and created a beautiful garden with natural flowing lines and curves, complete with a herb garden, fruit tree orchard, pickling shed and compost heap. We supplied Rosemary and Bay Laurel potted plants for the herb garden and a selection of Ilex crenata topiary balls of varying size to provide an attractive evergreen addition to the beds, their rounded form in keeping with and enhancing the overall design.
Besides these lovely plants, the garden also featured a number of other plants including Hazel, White Potentilla and Ornamental Grasses to help complete the look.
Love Your Garden 2019 – Episode 4
Tuesday 1st October saw the 4th episode of series 9 of ITV’s Love Your Garden. The team visited Icolyn Smith in Oxford, an 88 year old pensioner who has been feeding the homeless for 30 years. She has cooked over 65,000 home cooked meals whilst working in the community but also well into her retirement.
Icolyns garden was in need of some TLC so she could sit outside and enjoy even more meals with her family and friends, she also wanted the garden to be filled with wildlife interest, edible hedging, herbs, fruits and vegetables which she can use in her kitchen.
Garden Before ITV’s Make Over 
Garden After ITV’s Make Over
We supplied Box topiary balls and cones to the team who used these in the raised flower beds to add height and a unique design amongst the many fruit and vegetable shrubs and herbs.
Icolyn was more than happy with her lovely new garden which featured a multi-use summerhouse where Icolyn can cook her home grown ingredients. As the garden was long and narrow, the team implemented a zig-zag which means the garden can still be explored.
Other Products Featured In The Show
Love Your Garden 2019 – Episode 1
Hedges Direct are proud to once again be supporting Love Your Garden for another year running. Now on their ninth series, we are honoured to have featured in their first show.
The first episode featured a young family in Hucknall where a fellow landscaper designer, Daniel, received devastating news of being diagnosed with Alzheimers. Daniel and his wife, Jordan, with their two beautiful twins, Lola and Jasper, have a big garden space that they planned to restore into a family garden, but unfortunately Daniel was no longer able to work on the garden himself. Alan and the team mapped out the garden to have different areas for all the family. A therapy corner for Daniel, a resting place for Jordan and a play are for the twins. Throughout the episode the consideration for Daniel and his needs, but also his families needs, were kept at the forefront of the project and the ending result was more than spectacular.
Garden Before Love Your Garden’s Makeover 
Garden After Love Your Garden’s Makeover
We supplied Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) 90/120 5L pots to the show and these were used as a bordering plant which will eventually knit together to make a hedge. Hornbeam is very similar to Beech (Fagus sylvatica) in appearance but its leaves have deeper veins. Hornbeam makes the perfect hedge for keeping out noise and wind, ideal for heights of up to 5 metres, as well as providing a fantastic privacy screen. This well help the garden remain the tranquil environment Alan and the team designed for Daniel.
One spectacular product that was used in the show, which proved tricky for the team to implement due to their vast size, was the Mature Hornbeam swing trees from Holland. These marvellous tress create gentle shade for the garden and add a stunning and unique aesthetic.
Mature pleached trees are carefully nurtured and trained over a more extended period. One of the key advantages of planting mature pleached trees is you get to experience their stunning appearance immediately. Due to their dense screens, this species provides shade and privacy to your garden when in full leaf .
Other Products Featured In The Show
Love Your Garden NHS Special Garden 2018
Hedges Direct partners ITV’s ‘Love Your Garden’ for NHS 70thAnniversary Special.
Hedges Direct have been proud suppliers to ITV’s Love Your Garden since 2013, helping to transform the gardens of some of the most deserving homeowners in the UK. However, on May 22, the one-year anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing, an extremely special episode aired as part of ITV’s line up of dedicated programmes to celebrate 70 years of the NHS in which we donated a stunning selection of trees and plants that will form part of an exceptionally unique garden at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
The garden is dedicated to the bravery, positivity, and memory of all those affected by the attack a year ago, many of whom were children and were treated at the hospital at the time and some for whom treatment is still ongoing. However, it’s a space which is much needed, as the hospital, which is the largest single site children’s hospital in England, hasn’t had a designated garden at all until now, leaving patients, families and staff without an area for respite. Their letters prompted the Love Your Garden team to plan and create this space which is larger than all their other domestic gardens in the last series put together.
As a North West based company for whom Manchester holds a special place, Hedges Direct are especially honoured to have been a part of this project which saw an oasis of colour, texture, shape and function created as a tribute to the positive spirit of the people of Manchester and also a wonderful multi-functional space in which children and their families can find a relaxing, beautiful haven to enjoy and heal.
Hedges Direct donated a number of plants for the garden including large Box Topiary Balls and Box Instant Hedging Troughs along with some elegant White Barked Birch Trees and striking Pleached Hornbeam Trees. Grown with a long clear stem and branches trained onto a framework, pleached trees are also known as ‘Hedging on Stilts’ and grow to form high level screening providing areas of shade on sunny, warm days.
Manging Director Jamie Shipley said, “Hedges Direct is extremely proud and honoured to support this extra special ‘Love Your Garden’ project. It means a great deal to all of us at Hedges Direct, some of whom are local to Manchester to be able to make such a positive contribution to this wonderful space, which will provide much needed respite and a retreat for all those using the hospital and its services for many years to come”.
This Love Your Garden NHS Special was aired on the anniversary of the Manchester Arena attack on May 22nd at 8pm on ITV. If you missed the episode then you can catch it again on the ITV Hub.
Watch our ‘Get The Look’ video to see how our products were used in the garden and to create some ideas for your own gardens…
Love Your Garden 2017 Pt 2.
2017 saw Hedges Direct once again teaming up with Love Your Garden to help create some more dream spaces for the deserving and inspirational people featured in this series. The first episode was particularly emotional featuring Mark Ormrod, an ex-Royal Marine and a triple amputee who was injured in an IED explosion whilst serving in Afghanistan. Being physically incapacitated in this way has meant that although Mark with his iron willpower has embraced life in many positive and far reaching ways, small things, such as being able to create and maintain an outdoor space for he and his family to enjoy whilst still rehabilitating from his injuries, was difficult to achieve. And so in stepped the ‘Love Your Garden’ team and a host of fantastic suppliers, Hedges Direct included, to help the family of five finally have the recreational and therapeutic space that they so dearly needed.
The garden beforehand was uninspiring and characterless and a far cry from the haven that they wished for.
The Love Your Garden team took the space and turned it into a multi-functional and defined garden with areas for dining, sitting, playing and recuperating. Some of the planting was contained within built planters to contain growth and to aid the care and maintenance of the plants by being at a raised level thereby being easier to reach, and mature plants were also used to create that established garden feel. The outdoor flooring was low maintenance featuring beautiful porcelain paving around the dining areas, astro type turf for the lawn area and rubberised flooring around the play areas, all of which was levelled off to enable Mark to move around more easily on his prosthetic. Practical yet stunning we’re sure you’ll agree!
Hedges Direct were asked to provide some bamboo for the children’s play area to create a ‘bamboo jungle’ for the path leading from the lawn to the play house. Black Bamboo was provided to the team (Phyllostachys Nigra) in 10L pots. This type of bamboo has intensely black canes (creamy green in the first year) against green foliage, is clump forming and has a lovely arching habit. It’s height made it a great structural yet flexible addition to the play area whilst planted in such a way that it created a secret and exotic pathway to fire the children’s imaginations; the black pebbles of the path meanwhile are reflected by the black stems of the bamboo, all of which contrasts beautifully to the surrounding pale pebbled areas . Below, Frances plants the bamboo complete with their pots to help keep the bamboo contained to that area, although this being a clumping variety, the bamboo tends not to spread.
In addition to Black Bamboo, Hedges Direct also provided some Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus ‘Rotundifolia’) which was again used in the children’s play area behind the climbing frame. Once grown to maturity, this lovely glossy green hedge will screen the fencing behind creating a more natural feel to complement the chunky wood of the climbing frame.
The family now have the most amazing garden in which to relax, play, entertain and for Mark to continue his rehabilitation. We are proud and honoured to have helped the Love Your Garden team once again in 2017; we all wish the Ormrod family the very best and hope that they have many happy years enjoying this wonderful, inspirational space!
If you missed this episode, you can catch up at the ITV Hub.
Love Your Garden 2017
The final episode of Love Your Home and Garden 2017 featured Ann and Richard Price from Chester who have spent many years helping others through their charitable work and in addition, fostering almost 20 children. In recognition of their selfless dedication to others which has meant that their home and garden has taken much of a back seat in their busy lives, the Love Your Home and Garden team took on the challenge of creating a new indoor-outdoor space with a harmonious, natural flow for them and their family to now enjoy.
Hedges Direct’s help was once again enlisted to provide plants for the garden, but unlike other occasions, this garden featured products of the non-hedging variety! For this episode we supplied products from our other ranges of plants, namely the Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) tall pleached trees and border perennials which helped to create the wildflower meadow section of the garden.
Work in progress 
Squared cane framework creating distinctive and traditional pleached shaping 
Alan Titchmarsh with Hornbeam Pleached Tree 
Hornbeam Pleached Trees featured on Love Your Home & Garden in the final episode which aired on 13/09/17
Pleached trees, also known as ‘hedging on stilts’, are a traditional and formal method of training young branches onto canes creating a framework over which the tree develops and grows into a specific shape. The stems are long and straight giving the stilt-like effect. These trees are increasingly popular in modern garden design, providing architectural interest in both urban and rural garden settings. They are often used to provide an attractive high level screen above fencing or walls for an extra level of privacy, or to create a shaded area.
The Hornbeam pleached trees featured on this episode will develop in fullness and growth, eventually providing this type of screening and shade through the summer months.
Hornbeam Pleached TreeHornbeam Pleached Tree 
Hornbeam Leaves Hornbeam Pleached Tree
Hedges Direct are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of these specialist trees with expert growers providing some of the finest specimens in a range of species, ages and sizes including the more unusual espalier pleached, roof form and box head trees. Species varieties include Hornbeam, Beech, Lime, Maple, Cherry Laurel, Oak and Photinia amongst others. Whilst most are established over several years and are removed with their full root ball as developed specimens, we also supply a small range of potted pleached trees.
For more information about our range of pleached trees, click here or call the sales team on 01257 263873.
Love Your Garden 2015 Pt 2.
Hedges Direct were delighted to be supporting Love Your Garden once again in 2015 in the episode, aptly named Love Your Wild Garden. Alan and the team visit Keech Hospice in Luton to create a stunning wildlife garden for the patients to enjoy.
With a 500m plot to transform, Alan and the team certainly had a challenge on their hands, but not one to shy away from hard work, Alan immersed himself in everything wildlife friendly, including a huge pond and insect hotels, to create a garden alive with the sound of buzzing bees and twittering birds.
Using a variety of bee friendly plants, Alan created huge circular gabions that would be a thriving hub of insect activity for both the adults and the children at the hospice to enjoy.
Alan then used our instant mixed native hedging to create a boundary along the garden to give shelter from the wind. Instant hedging is a great way to achieve an established hedge unit without waiting for the plants to mature and native hedging is home to a huge variety of Britain’s wildlife species, providing both shelter and food year round.
Many people believe that a wildlife friendly garden has to be filled with brambles, weeds and nettles, however Alan proves that a garden bursting with colour, fragrance and ornamental value is just as attractive to wildlife as it is to us.
The Love Your Garden team designed this garden with nature in mind and managed to create an outdoor space for the patients of Keech Hospice to enjoy, finding tranquillity as they immerse themselves in the presence of nature.
Watch the full wildlife special and catch up on any other episodes from this series of Love Your Garden that you may have missed on ITV player.
Love Your Garden 2015
Following the successful relationship between Hedges Direct and Love Your Garden, we were asked to supply more plants for another episode in the current series of the popular ITV show.
Earlier in the series, we supplied Yew instant hedging to transform a tired family garden into a futuristic, modern space and have since provided four Ivy screens for another garden transformation. The Ivy screens, also known as living fences, are used to cover an unsightly oil tank, providing a more aesthetically pleasing solution than a fence.
The Ivy screens are made from a non-invasive species of Ivy that has dense foliage giving good coverage. Thirteen Ivy plants, each with five stems, are grown on light-weight galvanised steel frames which are easy to install and provide immediate impact. The many benefits of Ivy screens not only make them a great choice for domestic gardens but also businesses and public spaces too. The narrow screens are ideal for small spaces where a bushier hedge may take up too much room and they make an attractive alternative to fences and walls, providing both security and privacy with added wildlife value.
Love Your Garden 2013
In 2013, Hedges Direct became involved with this Alan Titchmarsh show, supplying a rather large quantity of mature Cherry Laurel hedging to plant in a garden in the Midlands.
Then again, during the Love your Garden 2014 series, we were asked to supply more hedging for the show, which included:
- 26m of mixed native instant hedging for a wildlife garden at a hospice in Luton and, for this same garden, we also supplied a large quantity of English Lavender plants for path edging. One of our sister companies, www.beefriendlygardenplants.co.uk also became involved in this makeover, supplying a large selection of perennials for mass planting in borders
- A gorgeous mature Japanese Maple tree (actually this was supplied by our other sister company www.ornamental-trees.co.uk)
- Portuguese Laurel hedging (again mature) for a garden in Burton on Trent
- Box hedging plants for a front garden project that was an extra surprise for the owners of a garden in South London
- Ilex crenata to demonstrate how it can be used as an alternative to Box hedging
Everything we contributed towards Love your Garden was supplied completely free of charge. We are proud to be associated with such a heart-warming programme, and over the moon to see Alan Titchmarsh planting our stock.
We hope all the 2013 and 2014 gardens are doing well with our hedging plants as integral elements of the designs and we’re now looking forward to the new series this summer. To take part in the programme, or nominate someone that you think deserves an Alan Titchmarsh garden makeover, find the Love Your Garden application here.
