The James & Joe Garden Show

What underwear should a professional gardener wear? Nobody at Gardeners' Question Time is going to touch that one. Luckily, you have us.

James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift hand the podcast over to you, and this week's postbag is long. Very long. One listener has had enough of pants that fall apart, fall down or cut off the circulation, which leads to a full design brief for the James and Joe gardening undergarment: rib cage to knee, built-in knee pads, a hori hori holder and a warm pocket for toffees.

Also in the bag: a lavender hedge crisis delivered as a tragic ballad in rhyming couplets (it wins a gnome), what to wear when judging a horticultural competition in North Carolina, and the plants you'd choose for a garden designed for your absolute nemesis... the ones that look like thoughtful luxury and turn into an endless maintenance hellhole. Bamboo, Japanese knotweed, mind-your-own-business and a walnut tree that poisons its neighbours all get a mention. Somewhere in there is an actual fact about allelopathy.

Plus: the correct way to pronounce scarifying, why Dr Seuss was never a doctor, and what Joe would do if he were ever sold to Tottenham.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Welcome to The James & Joe Garden Show
01:40 James sings the intro
02:47 How to send us a question
04:32 What underwear should gardeners wear?
10:18 Designing the perfect gardening pants
13:39 The Lavender Conundrum: a poem
16:31 When to rip out a lavender hedge
17:00 How to prune lavender
19:50 What to wear to judge a flower show
24:50 A uniform for flower show judges
27:32 Designing a garden for your nemesis
31:11 Invasive plants: knotweed, balsam and bamboo
32:21 Allelopathy: plants that poison their neighbours
35:52 Why is Dr Seuss a doctor?

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

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.

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

Send us a question for the chance to win the most coveted prize in horticulture. Poems welcome. Only two rules: no dead plants and no dull questions.

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.

An RHS judge is coming to lunch on Saturday. You have one afternoon. Do you tidy the garden, or cook something delicious? Cue a deep sigh — the answer turns out to have almost nothing to do with gardening.

James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift are back in the mailbag, answering the questions that scare the wits out of the other garden podcasts. This week yours send them from a medieval drawbridge to a Babylonian palace by way of a French ski slope. Somewhere in the middle of it they settle the burrata question, acquire a new job title, and Joe decides — live, with no warning whatsoever — precisely which plant represents Arsenal Football Club.

Also featuring: why a lawn burnt to a crisp is now the most sustainable thing you own, the correct number of concealed hori horis to carry into a castle, the deluxe half-day tour of the Garden of Eden (compost heap included), a signed fig leaf, James's genuine career ambition to be a professional washer-upper, and a two-dishwasher system that he is convinced cannot mathematically work.

This week's questions: Jane — an RHS judge and his wife are coming for lunch. Tidy the garden, or cook? Jackie in Ontario — as an Arsenal fan, which flower would Joe choose to represent his team? Buffy in Maine — one afternoon in any garden in human history. Where are you going? Rocco — if you weren't in garden design and broadcasting, what would you have been?

Chapters:

00:00 The two rules

02:12 James attempts the theme tune

04:26 Gnomes, and where to catch us live

06:56 Jane: an RHS judge is coming to lunch

14:13 Jackie in Ontario: which flower is Arsenal?

19:25 Dear Lords of Landscape

21:39 Buffy in Maine: one afternoon, any garden in history

28:05 Rocco: what would you be, if not this?

31:23 The two-dishwasher problem

34:51 James becomes an Olympic downhill skier

36:06 Goodnight from Joseph

See James and Joe live: Yeo Valley Organic Garden Festival, Somerset — 17 September. Advice for young and old gardeners, mostly in the form of mistakes they have already made on your behalf. The Garden Museum, London — 10 November. City gardens versus country gardens, with a proper audience vote.

Send us a question and you could win the most coveted prize in horticulture. Not a Chelsea gold medal — the gnome. 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. See you back in the garden.

Are hanging baskets a joyful party in a basket… or a drought-stricken relic dripping brown water onto your pint?

This week James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift end up on opposite sides. Joe declares the hanging basket dead: unsustainable, un-waterable, a whole summer of annuals frying fifteen feet up a wall. James wants to make them BIGGER. Big enough to grow an oak tree in. Big enough to have a snooze in.

Along the way: the Badminton show garden that won Best in Show on hanging baskets alone, the Hanging Basket King of Lincolnshire and his immortal sales line, a Chelsea judge dressed head to toe in cricket kit, olive oil tins from Hackney kebab shops, hanging basket semaphore in the style of Nelson at Trafalgar, and an entirely unnecessary digression about a prog rock album called Hanging Baskets of Babylon.

Plus: what's actually surviving 40°C in France, and the definitive answer to "when is a hanging basket not a hanging basket?"

Team hanging basket, or team absolutely not? Tell us in the comments.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The least sensible gardening podcast on the planet02:23 40°C in France: what's surviving and what isn't05:22 This week's topic, chosen by our eight researchers06:36 The Badminton garden that won Best in Show08:14 Alpine strawberries, French beans and a bad idea10:21 The Churchill Arms, and why pubs do it best10:46 The Hanging Baskets of Babylon12:18 Drip systems, brown water and your pint13:13 Prog rock digression: 22 minutes of drum solo15:16 The Hanging Basket King: "it's a party in a basket"17:42 Joe's case: the hanging basket is dead18:13 James's case: they're simply not big enough19:00 Nappies, moss, coir and why foraging is illegal20:25 When is a hanging basket not a hanging basket?21:13 Bras, colanders, kitchen sieves and olive oil tins24:38 Le jardin volant: napping in a flying garden28:13 Tumbling toms, pulleys and basket semaphore29:46 The verdict: pubs yes, restraint no31:31 Send us your questions

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.

JOIN 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.

Follow James & Joe on Instagram: @jamesandjoegardenFollow The Garden Collective on Instagram: garden_collective_Contact us: [email protected]

Our only two rules: no dead plants and no dull questions.

Which garden plant is most likely to achieve sentience first — and should you be locking the letterbox? Cue a deep sigh.

James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift are back with a mailbag full of your questions, and this week they manage to answer nearly all of them while agreeing on almost nothing.

In this episode the pair dive into:

– Whether fungi have already quietly taken over the world, and whether the oak tree is the brains of the operation while the mycorrhizal network is just the delivery driver (Joe objects on behalf of delivery drivers everywhere)

– The bindweed that comes in through the letterbox, up the stairs, round the banisters and drags you out of bed by the ankle. Joe is on holiday. Joe would now like to go home.

– The first jobs that made them: Joe's circular wildlife pond in Maida Vale, and the trellis James built in the shape of a queue at a bus stop — while wearing a kilt

– How to actually catch a house fly. Clap ABOVE it. James claims an 80% strike rate. Joe does not believe a word of it.

– Why a fig is the only non-vegan fruit, and what exactly happens to the wasp

– And what really goes on when RHS judges disappear into the dark room for moderation. Spoiler: it's Biscoff, mid-judging ice creams, and at least one judge with a Haribo dummy hanging out the corner of their mouth.

Plus the plant they secretly despise — although one of them bottles it completely at the last moment.

Questions this week from Kip Guy, Lin Guns, Annalisa Wells, Venetia and Jem.

Catch us live at Yeo Valley Festival, Somerset, on 17th September.

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.

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.

FOLLOW US

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

Send us your weird and wonderful garden questions for the chance to win our treasured mascot, the Garden Collective gnome, Jekyll. Our only two rules? No dead plants and no dull questions.

Is a nap in the garden the highest form of horticulture? James Alexander-Sinclair and Joe Swift are prepared to argue yes — provided you've had a decent lunch first.

This week the boys abandon anything resembling actual gardening to become world experts in the ancient art of the garden snooze. Joe declares himself "a world expert in snoozing" and plays his Joker; James counters that he can drop into a perfect ten-minute kip on command, even at the wheel (parked, he insists). Between them they cover the lot: the three-chair sleeping technique with proper lumbar support, why you ring the speaking clock so it looks like you're still on a sales call, and the correct way to lie in a Mexican hammock so you don't end up a banana in a banana skin.

Along the way — the caravan Joe emerged from mid-Chelsea to a baffled crowd, the foundation he left on James's hotel pillow, Salvador Dalí's plate-dropping nap trick, Winston Churchill's daytime pyjamas, Phil "The Cat" Tufnell asleep on a bar stool, and Ellen MacArthur's iron rule: under 20 minutes or over two hours, anything in between is fatal. Plus the grand launch of the James & Joe Napping School (paid, obviously) and a jingle that may or may not now involve a 64-piece orchestra.

No dead plants. No dull questions. And absolutely no staying awake.

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

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.

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: @jamesandjoegardenFollow The Garden Collective on Instagram: garden_collective_Contact us: [email protected]