BBC Online Gardening

The BBC's gardening web site offers a feast of information for any gardener.



The BBC have again redesigned this essential site for all garden lovers, and it looks smarter than ever.



On the home page there is a major link to favourite TV programme Gardeners' World, and the main menu has now moved to the right. BBC Gardeners' World ( the TV programme) has its own pages, with the ability of watch the programme online and enjoy other features from the programme and its archives.



A lot of research has obviously gone into finding out what gardeners really want from a website, as it scores highly on content, style, and ease of information retrieval.



Top right there is a link to the BBC Plant Finder, the message board and the chance to subscribe to the Gardening Newsletter.



Below is a list of what you will find: there are the obvious links to TV and Radio Programmes, but also to Competitions, Basics for the Garden, the Flower Shows of the season and how to get started in growing vegetables.
Today in your garden aims to keep you posted on what needs doing in the garden. It's well organised and subdivided into general tasks and jobs for the flower garden, greenhouse, kitchen garden and wildlife garden. There is also an interesting section on days out, places to visit.


Plants a huge section and in our view the best part of the site. The Plantfinder has a searchable database of plants. You can search by common name or by drop-down menu inputting much more detail. New Plants offers a good selection to try and Plant Profiles profiles plants of the season. The photographs are excellent.


Advice is where the celebrities get to shine, answering a whole range of questions, which are sorted according to categories like design, water gardening, roses, and container gardening. Anyone can post a question and the best are selected and posted on the site each week. There's a team of ten celebrity gardeners including Anne Swithinbank, Charlie Dimmock, Bob Flowerdew and Diarmuid Gavin.





OTHER FEATURES
There is a great new section on garden design. From the home page you can plan a virtual garden or link through to the period style guide which shows what you have to buy and plant to achieve a medieval, Tudor or Victorian garden and a nice section on Gardening with children.