Gardens founded by TV presenter Geoff Hamilton turn 40

The individual gardens that make up the site were the backdrop for many episodes of the programme

Several gardens planted by popular Gardeners' World presenter Geoff Hamilton, who died in 1996, are due to mark their 40th birthday. BBC News speaks to Geoff's son Nick about continuing his father's legacy.

They were backdrops that became familiar to millions of Friday night TV viewers.

The ornamental kitchen garden, the cottage garden and the Versailles garden - complete with countless tips on how you could recreate them in your own back yard - inspired a wave of trowel-wielding devotees.

Some even made the trip to Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland themselves in the hope of gaining entrance to see the lush borders and well-stocked vegetable plots.

Those who did left disappointed, however. At that time, Barnsdale was not open to the public.

Nick, who was a teenager when Gardeners' World was being filmed at Barnsdale, now operates the site as a tourist attraction

"A couple of elderly ladies turned up one day and were adamant they should get in to see the gardens because they paid their licence fee," recalled Nick, who now runs the site as a tourist attraction.

"At the time, they were filming so we couldn't let them in.

"If we had opened them during those years, there would have been 60,000 people coming here every weekend with nowhere to park, nowhere to eat and the gardens would have been utterly destroyed."

Hopefully, those two women have since returned to the site, which has been open since 1997.

Geoff first started making guest appearances on Gardeners' World in the 1970s, becoming its regular presenter in 1979.

He bought Barnsdale - which was pasture and farmland - in 1983.

Geoff bought the land as a field and began to cultivate it

"It was just a ploughed field and he started it from scratch," said Nick, who was a teenager at the time.

Geoff, in conjunction with the production team, decided to make Barnsdale the location for his Gardeners' World broadcasts from 1985.

What Geoff did next was highly unusual but worked perfectly for TV.

He decided to subdivide the eight-acre (three-hectare) site into 38 separate gardens, many of which were used as the backdrop to episodes of the programme in the 1980s and 1990s.

"The size of the gardens was relative to what most people have as their back garden at home," said Nick.

"That's what was so inspirational about it. I have absolutely no idea what made him do that.

"He was absolutely barking mad and this kind of thing used to come into his head all the time - these kind of fantastic ideas most people would never have thought of."

The size of each small plot was what inspired viewers, Nick said

All of the gardens had different themes, from the richly textured borders of the Versailles garden to the budget garden.

"He was acutely aware that people have to garden on a shoestring so he came up with ideas for how to feed a family of four from your garden for £2 a week," said Nick.

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Geoff himself was from the East End of London, but his family moved out to Hertfordshire when he was two.

"A man at the end of the road had a nursery and as a 15-year-old he did a summer job there and then became a self-employed landscape gardener," said Nick.

At one point, he started his own garden centre, but Nick said his father was "the world's worst businessman" and went bankrupt.

That, however, is what sent him into a career in gardening journalism and, eventually, led him to Gardeners' World.

Barnsdale continues to honour Geoff's organic innovations

His boundless curiosity led him to investigate peat-free and chemical-free growing and he took to organic gardening with a passion.

"He was always eager to get new information about anything and everything," said Nick.

"He came across the Garden Organic association and was convinced that was the right way to go and he ended up being at the forefront of that movement.

"He has been a catalyst for a lot of change and it feels as if, 27 years after his death, horticulture is still catching up with him.

"But he would be so chuffed to know that people finally understand his way of wanting to do things."

Geoff died in 1996, aged just 59, after suffering a heart attack.

Horticultural highlights

Monty Don - together with his dogs - take gardening enthusiasts through their jobs for the weekend

• Gardeners' World was first broadcast in 1968. It was initially presented by Ken Burras, before Percy Thrower took over in 1969.

• Geoff was succeeded as main presenter by Alan Titchmarsh in 1996.

• The programme is currently presented by Monty Don, often accompanied by his dogs, from his Herefordshire home Longmeadow.

His loss prompted an outpouring of grief from fans who had felt a strong connection to a man who was - in Nick's words - exactly in life as he was on the TV screen.

"We still get people welling up when they talk about him, even today," he said.

"It was staggering and it still is. When I was doing a talk at Barnsdale recently and made a joke about what a nightmare he could be to live with, there was deadly silence. It was as if I'd insulted the Pope.

"He never realised how popular he really was."

Geoff continues to be warmly remembered by the programme's viewers

Geoff's death came as an enormous shock to his three sons, too.

Nick, as the only one of the three to have inherited his father's lifelong passion for gardening, took over the running of Barnsdale.

He had already opened a nursery on some land at the end of the gardens, and that was used to create the much-needed car park and a tea room.

The first year of opening saw 63,000 visitors descend but numbers have eased off to a more manageable 32,000 a year.

"As my dad always said, a garden is a work in progress," said Nick, who manages the site with six gardeners and an overall team of 18.

"It's not a historical garden and it's moved on since his time. There are gardens that he would remember, such as the ornamental kitchen garden and the parterre garden, but we are here to keep developing and give people ideas."

He plans to mark Barnsdale's anniversary at a ticketed event on 6 August but added the staff were looking at ways to celebrate throughout the year.