Question Time: Olive Trees, Butterfly Haters & Exploding Ketchup

Is it okay to hate butterflies? Susan in London would like to know. Cue a deep sigh.

It’s Question Time, and James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift are back with your weird and wonderful garden questions. But first, Joe’s ketchup bottle has exploded. It hit both walls, his ear, his shirt and the sofa cushions, and now the great fridge or cupboard debate has to be settled once and for all.

Then there’s an operatic welcome that owes a great deal to Pavarotti, and James’s day out at the Britain in Bloom finals in Rochdale (gilets bleus and all). An Austrian listener gets her letter read back to her in an accent she specifically asked them not to do. There’s the case for butterfly houses as a form of imprisonment, the interior designer whose big idea was to paint the whole house white, and the architect who looked at James’s finished garden and decided it had to go. Plus a winter build where the mud nearly came over the top of James’s wellies, Joe’s favourite funk soul album, and why you should only grow the veg you can’t buy.

This week’s questions:
Christina in Bisamberg, Austria: Should I move my olive and fig trees out of their pots and into the ground?
Susan in London: Is it okay to hate butterflies?
Paolo: It’s the 18th century. Do you hire William Kent or Capability Brown?
Hannah: Do you work in all weathers?
Maxwell: Is grow your own actually cheaper than buying food?

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:40 A Pavarotti welcome
02:50 Joe’s exploding ketchup bottle
03:54 Should you keep ketchup in the fridge?
07:26 Britain in Bloom finals in Rochdale
10:46 Should olive and fig trees go in the ground?
16:38 Is it okay to hate butterflies?
19:32 Are butterfly houses cruel?
21:55 William Kent or Capability Brown?
22:46 Why architects shouldn’t design gardens
25:00 The designer who painted everything white
26:01 The architect who wanted the garden gone
29:37 Why the garden should come before the house
32:05 Do garden designers work in all weathers?
39:06 Is grow your own cheaper than buying food?

Got a question? Send it in for the chance to win the most coveted prize in horticulture (no, not a Chelsea gold medal).

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

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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.

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

Remember the two rules: no dead plants and no dull questions.