The James & Joe Garden Show

Is a swimming pool in a British garden a brilliant idea or a very expensive mosquito pit? With summers getting hotter, the phone is ringing with people who suddenly want one. Cue a deep sigh.James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift wade in on pools versus natural swimming ponds: what they cost, why water is always trouble, and why the Florida blue rectangle with a cover on it has no business sitting outside your kitchen window. There is, for once, some actual information... how deep to dig, how much of a swimming pond should be planting, and what happens to it all in a hosepipe ban.Also this week: a listener complains that he learned nothing from the last episode, Joe confesses to a pool in France and a strict nine-stroke length, James goes into a 1975 pool party in a velvet jacket, a pair of pants turns up in a Chelsea show garden, and a body double does Joe's swimming for him on the telly. Plus the launch of a bold new business venture: the adult paddling pool.TIMESTAMPS00:00 Welcome to The James & Joe Garden Show01:14 A Hammer Horror intro02:06 A listener says he learned nothing05:46 Cold water swimming and ice baths08:33 Is a swimming pool worth it in the UK?09:19 What colour should a swimming pool be?10:59 Kidney shaped and guitar shaped pools14:02 Natural swimming ponds explained15:20 How deep should a swimming pond be?17:20 How to keep a swimming pond clean20:55 Swimming ponds at Chelsea Flower Show27:54 James, a pool party and a velvet jacket30:44 Swimming pool running costs and maintenance33:52 Where to put a pool in the garden40:26 The adult paddling poolTo ask us a question email [email protected] or go to our website www.jamesandjoegarden.comFor ad free listening and bonus content then join us at the Garden Collective.Not only will you get us but new articles every week from some of the best garden writers around and access to a bulging archive from (without wishing to drop names) the likes of Alan Titchmarsh, Ann-Marie Powell, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith, Advolly Richmond, Jan Etherington and many others. Come and join the Collective for essays, seasonal notes, reflections and stories.About our hostsJames Alexander-Sinclair is a garden designer, writer and broadcaster. He is an RHS Vice-President and was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for outstanding contribution to horticulture in 2022.Joe Swift is a familiar face on television as a presenter of BBC TV's Gardeners' World and other gardening programmes. He is a garden designer, broadcaster, writer and design director of Modular.Follow James & Joe on Instagram: @jamesandjoegardenFollow The Garden Collective on Instagram: garden_collective_Contact us: [email protected] week it's questions, with a chance to win the most coveted prize in horticulture. The rules have not changed: no dead plants and no dull questions.

Where would you go to see great landscape architecture, and is there any difference between that and a good garden? James thinks there is, and his definition is not going to win him friends.
James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift are back on mailbag duty. Hannah in Dorset is starting a Masters in Landscape Architecture and wants to know where to go and look. Corinne in Dublin asks which single gardening problem they would magically abolish forever. Sarah in Manchester wants to know whether garden magazines are still worth buying, or whether we are all just addicted. And Bruce and Felicity Summers need a golden tree for their golden wedding, after the silver birch they were given for their silver one gave up in the drought.
Also in this one: five unbroken minutes on the cornet, an etymology lesson nobody asked for, three wishes from a genie who lives in a brass instrument, a full costing of the James and Joe house band, and Joe's appearance on the cover of Sea Angler, which he is thinking of turning into wallpaper.
James's phone dies with one question to go. Joe carries on regardless.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The two rules
01:39 James invents a theme tune
04:18 Should James learn the cornet?
05:03 Where the word Cornetto comes from
07:55 Three wishes from a genie
09:48 Where to see great landscape architecture
10:55 King's Cross and Coal Drops Yard
12:30 Garden designer or landscape architect?
16:52 Why the High Line works
19:19 One gardening problem solved forever
24:53 Gardening on TV is always wrong
26:13 Are garden magazines worth buying?
33:06 Getting a job from a magazine photo
36:51 A golden tree for a golden anniversary
38:45 James's phone gives up
To ask us a question email [email protected] or go to our website www.jamesandjoegarden.com
ABOUT OUR HOSTS
James Alexander-Sinclair is a garden designer, writer and broadcaster. He is an RHS Vice-President and was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for outstanding contribution to horticulture in 2022.
Joe Swift is a familiar face on television as a presenter of BBC TV's Gardeners' World and other gardening programmes. He is a garden designer, broadcaster, writer and design director of Modular.
For ad free listening and bonus content then join us at the Garden Collective.
Not only will you get us but new articles every week from some of the best garden writers around and access to a bulging archive from (without wishing to drop names) the likes of Alan Titchmarsh, Ann-Marie Powell, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith, Advolly Richmond, Jan Etherington and many others. Come and join the Collective for essays, seasonal notes, reflections and stories.
Follow James & Joe on Instagram: @jamesandjoegarden
Follow The Garden Collective on Instagram: garden_collective_
Contact us: [email protected]
www.jamesandjoegarden.com
No dead plants. No dull questions. Jekyll the gnome is still up for grabs.

What's the point of a wasp? Or a midge, a horse fly, a tick, or a chicken mite the size of a full stop that gets into your ear while you're cleaning out the hens? Cue a deep sigh.
James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift agree that biodiversity is a good thing. They are less sure about the bits of it that bite. So this week they go looking for the point of the creatures nobody puts on a tote bag, and find out whether "it's food for something else" really is the answer to everything.
Along the way: the strip of village green James is quietly annexing, a hedgehog spotted at four in the morning under circumstances Joe would rather not detail, five wasp stings at a French bottle bank, the spider lobbed out of a bedroom window at midnight, why Robert the Bruce means James has not killed a spider since, a squirrel with a mohican on Hampstead Heath, deer being repelled by motion-sensored water pistols, parakeets that may or may not be Jimi Hendrix's fault, and a piranha that bit back after it was already dead.
No conclusions were reached. Several were nearly reached.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Cold open
01:41 Summer's over, back to proper gardening
03:19 Letting a patch of village green go wild
05:32 What is biodiversity, actually?
08:24 What's the point of wasps?
11:47 Stung five times at the bottle bank
16:08 The spider in the bedroom
17:48 Robert the Bruce and his spider
20:55 Bitten by a squirrel
25:27 Chicken mites, the worst thing in the garden
30:00 Ticks, long grass and Lyme disease
33:46 Deer numbers and eaten roses
37:56 Parakeets and invasive species
44:47 Bitten by a piranha
To ask us a question email [email protected] or go to our website www.jamesandjoegarden.com
ABOUT OUR HOSTS
James Alexander-Sinclair is a garden designer, writer and broadcaster. He is an RHS Vice-President and was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for outstanding contribution to horticulture in 2022.
Joe Swift is a familiar face on television as a presenter of BBC TV's Gardeners' World and other gardening programmes. He is a garden designer, broadcaster, writer and design director of Modular.
For ad free listening and bonus content then join us at the Garden Collective.
Not only will you get us but new articles every week from some of the best garden writers around and access to a bulging archive from (without wishing to drop names) the likes of Alan Titchmarsh, Ann-Marie Powell, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith, Advolly Richmond, Jan Etherington and many others. Come and join the Collective for essays, seasonal notes, reflections and stories.
Follow James & Joe on Instagram: @jamesandjoegarden
Follow The Garden Collective on Instagram: garden_collective_
Contact us: [email protected]
www.jamesandjoegarden.com
No dead plants. No dull questions. And no spiders out of the window, apparently.

Is jungle planting a bloke thing? And more importantly, does a man who wants a garden that requires no gardening actually deserve one?
James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift throw the horticultural handbook out of the window again, this time for a full mailbag. What starts as a reasonable question about exotic planting ends up somewhere near cacti societies, edible hostas, whether Walter Raleigh really brought back the potato, and a gnome doing something regrettable in a nightclub.
Along the way: why James's curves are superior to your wiggles, the wall he wants built in the shape of his own signature, a listener who drove from New York to Florida listening exclusively to this podcast until her sat nav gave up in protest, and the one garden ornament James never wants to see again (it involves a Jack Russell, and it is not the end you are expecting).
This week's questions come from Mrs Lang Shani on jungle planting and gender, Colin in Cardiff and his paved yard that looks like a car park, Gillian on curves versus straight lines, Nina in Melbourne on what gnomes get up to after dark, and Carmilla on the one garden trend that should never come back.
Fair warning: one listener gets told, live on air, that he does not deserve a garden. We stand by it.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro06:17 Is jungle and exotic planting a bloke thing?14:47 Exotic planting in small city gardens18:10 Why aren't there more women designing at Chelsea?19:52 Low maintenance planting for a paved yard26:31 Curves or straight lines in garden design?38:54 Garden trends that should never come back
ASK US A QUESTION
To ask us a question email [email protected] or go to our website www.jamesandjoegarden.com. Answer well and you are in with a chance of winning the most coveted prize in horticulture, our gnome, Jekyll.
THE GARDEN COLLECTIVE
For ad free listening and bonus content then join us at the Garden Collective.
Not only will you get us but new articles every week from some of the best garden writers around and access to a bulging archive from (without wishing to drop names) the likes of Alan Titchmarsh, Ann-Marie Powell, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith, Advolly Richmond, Jan Etherington and many others. Come and join the Collective for essays, seasonal notes, reflections and stories.
ABOUT OUR HOSTS
James Alexander-Sinclair is a garden designer, writer and broadcaster. He is an RHS Vice-President and was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for outstanding contribution to horticulture in 2022.
Joe Swift is a familiar face on television as a presenter of BBC TV's Gardeners' World and other gardening programmes. He is a garden designer, broadcaster, writer and design director of Modular.
SEE US LIVE
Yeo Valley Organic Garden Festival, Holt Farm, Blagdon, Somerset. 17 September 2026.
The Garden Museum, London. 10 November 2026, city gardens versus country gardens, with an audience vote.
FOLLOW
Instagram: @jamesandjoegarden
The Garden Collective: garden_collective_
www.jamesandjoegarden.com
Only two rules apply. No dead plants and no dull questions.

How much of your garden is actually yours? And how much of it belongs to whoever's peering over the fence?

James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift take on garden privacy, and immediately disagree about whether it's a problem worth solving. James has just come from a client who cut his hedge DOWN so he could ambush passers-by from his wheelchair. Joe once lived next door to a flat that held naked Sunday afternoon parties, and has never fully recovered.

Along the way: why retirement flats facing the road always sell first (people want to see a bit of a mugging), the fortress garden problem and why building one leaves you with an expensive shady box, the one screening trick that actually works (move the plant closer to you, not closer to them), and why sitting down is the cheapest privacy money can't buy.

Then there's sound, which turns out to be the harder half. Acoustic fencing at Horatio's Garden in Scotland, the futility of arguing with a flight path, and a doomed attempt to coin a name for a quiet garden. Pianissimo gardens, anyone?

Plus: Ken. Ken is retired, bored, owns a small yappy dog and a stepladder, and has seen Joe on the telly. Ken's wife Meg cooks anchovies with alphabet spaghetti and plays Slade at volume. Joe is not allowed to move house. Good luck, Joe.

With a nod to Dolly Parton and Tim Curry, and the tale of the cattle that ate every single tree James had planted the day before.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Welcome
01:15 Remembering Dolly Parton and Tim Curry
03:24 Southport Flower Show, Mr Motivator and Anton Du Beke
06:10 How private should a garden be?
08:18 Why fortress gardens don't work
09:10 The screening you can never clip
10:54 Joe's naked neighbours in Hackney
13:28 A prisoner in your own garden
16:28 The screening trick that actually works
16:55 Sit down: the cheapest privacy there is
18:58 Cutting noise with an acoustic fence
23:00 Aircraft noise and why you stop hearing it
25:22 Meet Ken and Meg, the neighbours from hell
38:59 Is a leylandii hedge ever a good idea?
42:46 The cattle that ate every tree

Catch us live at the Yeo Valley Organic Garden Festival, Holt Farm, Blagdon, Somerset on 17 September 2026.

To ask us a question email [email protected] or go to our website www.jamesandjoegarden.com

ABOUT OUR HOSTS

James Alexander-Sinclair is a garden designer, writer and broadcaster. He is an RHS Vice-President and was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for outstanding contribution to horticulture in 2022.

Joe Swift is a familiar face on television as a presenter of BBC TV's Gardeners' World and other gardening programmes. He is a garden designer, broadcaster, writer and design director of Modular.

For ad free listening and bonus content then join us at the Garden Collective.
Not only will you get us but new articles every week from some of the best garden writers around and access to a bulging archive from (without wishing to drop names) the likes of Alan Titchmarsh, Ann-Marie Powell, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith, Advolly Richmond, Jan Etherington and many others. Come and join the Collective for essays, seasonal notes, reflections and stories.

Follow James & Joe on Instagram: @jamesandjoegarden
Follow The Garden Collective on Instagram: garden_collective_
Contact us: [email protected]
www.jamesandjoegarden.com

No dead plants and no dull questions.